


Hole in the Fence

by nirejseki



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Detailed Description of Injury Recovery, Did I mention goats?, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Goats, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Procedures, Physical Disability, Trauma, realistic depiction of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-01 12:33:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10921887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirejseki/pseuds/nirejseki
Summary: Mick Rory's life was changed forever by the fire he didn't escape.(in which Mick Rory retires, raises goats, and saves the world more than a few times)





	1. Fire

First, there is the fire.

Then there is pain.

And in the end, there is darkness. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mick comes to awareness slowly, sporadically. 

There are machines around him, he knows that first, and people, too, flitting in and out. 

It’s perhaps three times before he realizes that he’s breathing by machine. He’s been intubated.

A hospital, then.

He’ll have to break out before they transfer him to prison, though it depends on the severity of the injury. He doesn’t entirely remember what happened, but that’s fine. He’s still in shock.

He tries to move a hand.

It doesn’t really work, but a few cords seem to quiver in the air as a result.

IV, he thinks. Several of them, even. Ugh, that probably means he has a catheter, too, which always makes breaking out…tricky. 

He’ll worry about that later.

He slips back into sleep.

The next time he wakes up, he hears voices.

“– reduction in edema is above average,” a crisp female voice is saying. “CO levels are continuing to drop; I think we can reduce the percentage of oxygen further. This is a good sign,” she adds.

“Any idea when he’s gonna wake up?” a male voice, heavily accented with the nasal drone of Central City, asks.

Mick knows that voice.

It’s Len.

That’s a surprise. Len hates hospitals. 

Not as much of a surprise as when the female voice replies, “I’m sorry, Mr. Snart, but there’s no way to tell. We’ve taken Mr. Rory out of the medically induced coma, but returning to awareness is a slow process. He’s woken up several times, but we haven’t been able to make any further determinations regarding –” Her voice fades away, as though they’re walking.

Mr. Snart. Mr. Rory.

Len gave them their _real names_?

Mick can’t help but make a dissatisfied sound.

“Did you hear that?” Len asks, his voice oddly high-pitched, choked up. Doesn’t sound like him at all, though it's definitely him. “He’s awake!”

“Mr. Snart,” the female voice says. “Please come with me –”

“But he’s _awake_ – he’s –”

“Our nurses will make that determination. Please, with me, Mr. Snart.”

Mick tries to say something, but the goddamn intubation doesn’t help. There are women and men fussing around him.

He slips under again despite his best efforts to stay awake.

When he next wakes up, though, his throat is sore in a way that says the intubation is gone, though he still has an oxygen mask. He’s still very fuzzy, which means they’re giving him the good drugs. That’s nice. Hospitals often don’t bother, with him; they take one look at his record and assume he feels the pain less than most. Sometimes with Len they don’t believe he feels it at all, not until he opens his eyes and puts on the charm, anyway. 

“Mr. Rory,” a gentle voice says. “Can you hear me?”

Mick blinks.

“Hsptl,” he slurs.

No, that’s not right.

“Yes, Mr. Rory; you’re at the hospital,” the voice continues. Must be one of the nurses. “We’re going to go through your ROM exercises – that’s range of motion exercises, Mr. Rory. You’ll also get a massage. You don’t need to do anything right now, I’m just letting you know that that’s what’s happening. Do you understand me?”

Mick makes a grunting noise he hopes she interprets as agreement.

The exercises are unpleasant when he can feel them, which isn’t always, but he’s really high on the good stuff right now, so he’s okay with it. He’ll worry about it later. Lenny’s around; Lenny’ll worry about it until he’s good enough to break out. 

“All right, Mr. Rory, we’re done,” the nurse says. “Now, we’ve discussed this before the last time you woke up, but do you remember what happened?”

Mick doesn’t.

Except –

“Fire?”

“Yes, Mr. Rory, you were in a fire. You were very badly burned, but we’re taking good care of you.”

Mick wonders when Lenny will break him out.

He slips away again.

This sets the pattern for a while. He’s not entirely sure how long; eventually they remove the splints and replace them with compression bandages, which he approves of. 

They also start active ROM exercises, which he does not approve of. Those require _effort_. He’s only awake for ten, fifteen minutes at a time, guys; give him a _break_. And that’s not counting the changing of the bandages, the injections, the massages, swapping the IVs…

Mick hears Len’s voice often, though usually distantly. Talking with the doc – Dr. Disha Bhavasar runs lead on Mick’s team, apparently. Mick wasn’t aware he had a _team_.

Sometimes Len helps out with some of the medical stuff. Nothing serious – changing an IV bag, helping them flip Mick over, stuff like that.

Sometimes Len reads stuff out loud from the chair by the bed when he thinks Mick is asleep.

Mick tries to ask him once what the plan is, but his tongue is still thick in his mouth and anyway Len jumps out of his seat and runs for the doctor the second he realizes Mick’s awake.

Totally _not_ helpful, Len.

The doctor makes the nurses put him through ROM exercises.

Next time, Mick just enjoys listening to Len read for a while. 

…doesn’t make them stop bugging him to do his exercises. 

Len’s there every day, Mick thinks, which is a bit weird. Len shouldn’t do something like that; hanging around a hospital is a sure-fire way to be caught. Unless he also got hurt or something?

He doesn’t look _that_ hurt. They should’ve transferred him to prison by now. 

Mick’s about to figure it out when the nurses sweep in.

 _Ugh_. More exercises.

Mick’s got all sorts of elastic wrap covering his hands, arms, and legs, he’s found; he thinks it’s custom-fitted even though what little he can see of his hands are clearly all puffy, meaning that they need to swap the sizes every once in a while. 

At least he’s starting to stay awake for longer. Think more.

It still takes almost unforgivably long for him to ask Shlomit – his favorite of the nurses, mostly because she has a sadistic streak a mile long and literally no sympathy – where the hell they are, because this is _definitely_ not a hospital. It smells like one, sure, but the walls are painted a respectable shade of blue and the nurses wear scrubs but it’s the same nurses every day and he’s got a group that he recognizes by now. It doesn’t _feel_ like a hospital.

“It is a private clinic,” she tells him. “We care for burn patients exclusively.”

Mick frowns. A clinic. Exclusive to burns. 

“Is this expensive?” he asks suspiciously.

Shlomit arches her eyebrows at him. She has pale green eyes that shine all the brighter against her warm brown skin, and her hair is bound back under some sort of scarf as always; she’s explained to him that she’s Orthodox. Orthodox what, he’s not sure, but it’s never really mattered to him. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” she tells him, which means yes.

“Is Lenny just _burning money_?” he demands. He still slurs a bit when he talks, now, but it’s much better than before; he can make himself understood.

“Are you implying that we’re not taking good care of you?” she asks archly. “I think that means you’re ready for some more stretching.”

“You’re _evil_ ,” Mick says, not without admiration.

“Yeah, people say that,” she says, getting him started on the initial stretches. “Do you feel up to a visit from your therapist?”

Mick’s been refusing it – he _hates_ prison therapists – but if this is some sort of private clinic…

“Hey,” he says. “Any chance we get Ji-hyun? She’s my go-to back in Central.”

Shlomit rolls her eyes. “Yes,” she says patiently. “She’s available.”

“ _Nice_.”

Ji-hyun has been his psychiatrist and therapist for a while. He likes her. She _also_ has no sympathy and starts to threaten him with bodily harm if he skips too many of his pills or visits, which maybe wouldn’t work for most people but is just the way he likes it. She speaks his language. 

She’s also willing to accept under-the-table cash in exchange for not reporting his regular visits to the CCPD, but she says that’s only because she thinks Mick needs the therapy more than he does a prison cell so Mick is pretty okay with that. 

She comes marching in, hands on hips. “Michael,” she says, because she called him that once by accident and now it’s turned a nickname. “What is this I hear about you not wanting to see me?”

“I thought you’d be a prison shrink, Ji-hyun! It ain’t my fault!”

She huffs. That huff clearly states that it’s totally his fault and she’s going to make him pay for it. 

Mick smiles.

She sits down. They make small talk for a bit before she goes for the jugular. “Michael. You were burned badly. You will need to make adjustments to your life because of this.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “I –”

“No, Michael. This is not a ‘yeah, yeah’. This is quite serious. The doctors tell me you do not listen to them. You will listen to me.”

Mick frowns. “Okay,” he says. “I’m listening.”

“Your back, shoulders, arms, and legs were burned very badly,” she says.

“I know that much,” Mick says. “That’s why I spend most of my time on my belly.”

“There were third and fourth degree burns over half your body, Michael. The smoke got into your lungs, your throat. There was damage there, too. You have required skin grafts when the skin split open –”

“I don’t want skin grafts,” Mick objects. “I like the burns.”

“You need it to live,” Ji-hyun snaps. “You will need rest and rehabilitation, even after you are fit to leave. Your mobility will be affected.”

Mick has been ignoring the docs about this, this is true. Docs always exaggerate. But if Ji-hyun says it…

“How bad?” he asks.

She levels a look at him. “Bad, Michael,” she says, and her voice is gentle. Her voice is never gentle. “It will take you much time to recover. And we do not know how long it will take. But you _will_ recover, because you are the most stubborn blockhead I have ever met.”

Mick is very subdued when she leaves. He’d known it was bad, of course – even he can’t miss the bandages wrapped all around him, the pain that he still takes far too much medication for, the way he coughs often and his chest hurts when he tries to talk too much – but he hadn’t really been listening when people had told him that it was _really_ bad.

“I’d like to see Len – uh, Mr. Snart – if he’s here,” he tells Shlomit.

“He’s always here,” she tells him.

“He _is_?”

That…definitely doesn’t sound like Len.

“What does he even _do_?” Mick wonders. 

“He takes classes,” Shlomit says. “He has occasional panic attacks which are very inconvenient for everyone because he tries to hide them among a room filled with trained professionals. He reads to you when you sleep, sometimes. He’s on the phone pretty often, setting something up; I think it has to do with your home.” She considers for a moment. “He watches from the observation room, through that glass plane, sometimes, when you’re awake and doing your stretches, but he refuses to come inside even when we invite him.”

That’s a lot to take in.

“What sort of classes?” Mick asks.

She looks at him oddly. “To learn to help take care of you when you move to outpatient status, of course,” she tells him.

Mick swallows.

Oh.

 _That_ bad.

Guess Len’s not here to break him out after all.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Len is finally coaxed into Mick’s hospital room a few days later.

“They said you wanted to see me,” Len says. His face is blank, masked; even Mick can’t tell what he’s feeling. 

“Yeah,” Mick says. “How much this place fucking _cost_?”

Len’s eyebrows arch in surprise. That’s clearly not where he expected Mick to start. “That’s not important.”

“It is if it’s coming out of my stash,” Mick points out, then coughs wetly. Goddamn lung damage. 

“It’s not,” Len says shortly. “Next question?”

“You gave ‘em our real names.”

“They needed your full medical history,” Len says.

Mick nods. He’d figured as much.

“So how long?” he asks.

“How long what?”

“Till the cops get on our asses.”

Len blinks owlishly at him.

“Cops,” Mick says. “Pigs. _Police_. You remember them? You get hit on the head or something?”

“I didn’t get _hit on the head_ ,” Len says. “I’m just not getting the relevance.” 

“I got caught, didn’t I?” Mick asks. “Caught means ambulance, hospital. They report to the cops. Cops come and pick us up. Except I guess this time was really bad, so we got longer before they come, right?” 

“They’re not going to come,” Len says slowly. He pauses for a moment. “You – don’t remember? What happened?”

“No,” Mick says. “Disha says it’ll probably come back. Even odds.”

“Her name is Dr. Bhavasar, Mick.”

“Her first name is Disha.”

“She’s in charge of saving your _life_ right now, you –” Len pauses, pulls himself back. Calms down, even though he wasn’t exactly ranting and raving, just raising his voice the slightest bit. Mick hasn’t seen him this forcefully self-controlled outside of a job in years; not since his dad split for good. “You should be respectful.”

“She doesn’t mind,” Mick points out. She’s said as much.

“You don’t remember _anything_?” Len presses.

“Not yet,” Mick says. 

Len abruptly stands up. “I’ll come back later,” he says, and leaves.

Mick frowns after him.

Time to start digging through his memories, clearly.

Len comes back a few hours later, just when Mick is in the middle of his gait training, which is fucking awful. His feet weren’t actually even burned, thanks to his boots, but his legs were, and due to the way they’ve been healing – the docs call it contracture, and they’ve been working on minimizing it, sometimes with surgery that involves literally _cutting him open_ so his own goddamn skin doesn’t strangle him – his feet sometimes feel like they’re at different lengths. They might actually be, at that. The compression bandages don’t help, either, but Disha says that if he practices walking (she calls it ambulation, but he’s corrected her enough times for her to finally break out a smile) enough, she thinks the gait deviation will mostly correct itself. Mostly.

Mick still uses a wheelchair when he needs to get around, most of the time. Not that he really gets around much. 

Not even Mick’s inventive swearing gets a grin out of Len, not even when the nurses help Mick back onto the bed – he’s gotten better at transferring in and out of the weird backless wheelchair and the crutches, but he’s not perfect, and they’ve put him back into the splints for a while as he keeps re-building muscle so he can keep his posture.

He apparently lost quite a bit of muscle.

Endurance and strength training to build it back up is probably the only part of this which is deeply familiar to him. 

Disha starts explaining to Len what she’s doing with the splints and helping Mick back into bed.

“You learning this crap, Lenny?” Mick asks, aiming for pleasant and coming out only slightly grumpy. Physical therapy is hard and frustrating, and occupational therapy is frustrating on a totally different level, so grumpy is the best Len’s going to get.

Len doesn’t say anything, just presses his lips together, but he sits down and takes one of Mick’s arms and starts applying some sort of lotion in just the same manner as Shlomit is doing on the other side. 

“Are you _moisturizing_ me?”

“Your skin is dry,” Shlomit says, as if Mick is asking her instead of Len. “Burn scars do not sweat; your skin will require lubrication on a regular basis into the indefinite future.”

“Not the thing I was thinking I’d like lubricated,” he says, winking at her.

She gives him an unimpressed look. “I get to wash you with a sponge later. Including the areas with the pus.”

“Love me, love my pus.”

Len snorts.

“He speaks!” Mick says. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten how.”

Len swallows, hard.

“How long till he needs to go outpatient?” he asks Disha, unhelpfully ignoring Mick.

“I think we can make the transfer soon enough,” Disha replies. “I would prefer him to be in a familiar environment, if possible, but somewhere quiet is more important. As I’ve explained to you before, a quiet place with a moderate climate and accessibility accommodations is the most preferable.”

“I’m sick of these walls,” Mick volunteers. He’s been here two months already. It’s time to go.

“Of course, he’ll have to continue treatment on a regular basis.”

Mick sighs. So much for that. He permits the nurses to help him into his compression garments where they’ve given up with the splints. It’s like a jacket that holds him tight. It helps with the itching. 

“You’ve been doing quite well,” Disha tells him. “We didn’t even have to amputate anything.”

“…was that a risk?” Mick asks, slightly alarmed.

Len leaves the room again, rather abruptly.

“He needs to stop doing that,” Mick adds, staring balefully after him.

“It’s difficult for him,” Shlomit says. “He was involved in the discussions early on – he is your medical power of attorney, after all. He vetoed an early amputation that we thought might be necessary.”

“Good,” Mick says, then pauses. “Wait, what was being suggested to be cut off, exactly?”

“It’s not important,” Shlomit says. “We didn’t do it and it turned out we didn’t have to in the end, and best of all you didn’t die of sepsis as a result of us _not_ doing the amputation.” 

“It’s a good thing Mr. Snart got you here within five hours of the injury,” Beth, the other nurse, says. “We were able to take care of you right away instead of getting you through the hospital system – they usually call someone in, but it’s not necessarily immediate and they don’t have the expertise we do.”

Within five hours?

Mick – _remembers_. 

There was a fire. A warehouse – it went up. There was an ambulance. Len broke into it, guns blazing; ditched the drivers and drove like a maniac. Something was wrong with his face. It shone in the light like it was wet or something, but that’s ridiculous; Len doesn’t cry, and certainly not in _public_.

There was a fire.

A warehouse.

Len was screaming his name. 

It went up so _fast_. Something went wrong on the job; it shouldn’t have gone up so fast.

There was a fire.

There was –

Len shouting at him.

Saying they were _done_ , that he was _out_ , that Mick had gone too far –

“I think I’d like to go to bed now,” Mick says.

The nurses frown at him, but comply.

He doesn’t sleep.

Len’s out.

Len’s _out_.

Len doesn’t change his mind about things like that.

If you’re out, you’re out. _Period_.

Why is Len still here?

Len comes by a few hours later with his book. They’re going through Twenty Years After, which is apparently the sequel to the Three Musketeers. It’s been pretty enjoyable thus far, and Len never minds going back a few chapters because Mick fell asleep last time. 

Mick waits until Len’s sitting.

“Thought you were out,” he says.

Len freezes. 

A moment passes.

“Thought you didn’t remember,” he drawls at last. His voice is unreadable, buried behind so many layers of ice that even Mick can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“Disha said it’d come back,” Mick says. He pauses. “You broke into an ambulance for me.”

Len swallows. “You’re my partner,” he says. His voice is rough, like it’s his throat that’s too tight. Like Mick’s sounds now, with the smoke damage. “Least I could do.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Mick snaps.

“ _I_ picked the job,” Len snaps back. “Me – I’m the planner. It’s my job to case the places out ahead of time – I should’ve known –”

“What, that it’d go up in flames like it was covered in accelerant? Don’t be stupid. You ain’t stupid, Len.”

“No,” Len says. “I am, sometimes. Now shut up and let me read, or else I’m throwing this book in the garbage and you’ll never find out if they all _die_.”

“They’re not all gonna die, it’s a novel and they’re the heroes,” Mick says automatically.

“Yeah, a novel - from the _nineteenth century_.”

“They don’t die in the movie.”

“Hollywood,” Len says, like it answers everything. Which it probably does.

Mick wants to keep talking, but he also really does want to know if everybody dies now. “Fine,” he says. “But we ain’t dropping this.”

Len doesn’t respond. He starts reading.

They never do get to talking about it again, though.

Disha starts talking to Mick about the move to outpatient. 

Len gets more involved in helping with the ROM exercises, his face utterly blank the entire time. Mick would say something, but he’s usually panting in pain and exertion. 

Len does pretty well with the daily lotion applications and scar massages, though. Mick still doesn’t feel much through the scars, though that seems to be improving somewhat. 

Mick goads Len to talk some more during those, little jabs and quips and eventually – as much as it pains him – setting up some truly horrific puns that it would physically pain Len not to complete.

That cracks the ice.

(Yes, pun _goddamn_ intended to reflect Len's cold-hearted reputation. If that's what it takes to get his partner back...)

Len starts talking again. Not much, but some.

“It’s itching again,” Mick grumbles.

“I’ll give you another massage, you big baby,” Len says, rolling his eyes, but he’s as good as his word. It helps with the itching.

“You think you can handle all this?” Mick asks. “When we’re out of this hellhole?”

“I’ve got a plan,” Len says. 

That’s comforting. Mick likes it when Len has a plan.

Mick doesn’t ask too many questions. 

Well, he doesn’t until he sees the house, anyway.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

“What the fuck,” Mick says flatly once he’s lying in bed again.

“What?” Len asks. “Don’t like the color?”

He frowns at the walls of the bedroom, like somehow that’s the problem here.

That is not the problem here. The walls are a very pleasant shade of golden tan. 

“Len,” Mick says slowly. “Where _are_ we?”

“The house where you’ll be doing your outpatient –”

“ _Len_.”

“…what?”

“I’ve never seen this house before,” Mick says. “We don’t have a safehouse in the middle of the countryside.”

Mick is very sure of this. He’s _from_ the countryside; he was born and raised on a farm. Len, on the other hand, wouldn’t know an ear of corn from a blade of grass and prefers their safehouses to be more of the wealthy apartment building or abandoned industrial warehouse style.

Len looks offended. “It’s not in the middle of the countryside – it’s still a suburb of Central, just one with a lot of free space and –”

“Not the issue!”

“What’s the issue then?!”

“ _When did we get this house?_ ”

“I bought it,” Len says, like it’s obvious.

Mick blinks.

“You bought it,” he says.

“Yeah,” Len says. “For your recovery. The doc said you need somewhere with a temperate climate and lots of mobility assistive devices like ramps and –”

“You’re kidding me,” Mick says.

“No,” Len says, seeming puzzled. “This was the first place that came up on my search. And you like green places, don’t you?”

“Tell me you took some of it out of my stash,” Mick says with a sigh. Len is literally _burning money_ on this stupid thing. They’re going to have to go on _so many jobs_ to build their stashes back up when Mick is back in the game.

Len looks shifty. He’s an idiot.

“How much did this place cost, anyway?”

“Will you stop worrying about cost?” Len says. “I’ve saved up some.”

“‘Buying a house’ some?”

“Well, yeah. I wanted somewhere nice and legal so the pigs wouldn’t look for us. Even got us cleaned up IDs, proper backstories and all that, and destroyed all the open cases against us. We’re free and clear for now.”

Mick has to admit that’s a good point. He’s going to need a few more months.

He keeps saying that to himself. 

A few more months. 

Just a few more.

He tries not to think about what Len promised that they’d do in exchange for the IDs. High-end clean identities is the type of stuff you pay for in favors, not in cash.

Shlomit bustles in. “Guess what time it is!” she sings. “PT time!”

Mick glares at her. “Your reign of terror is coming to an end, you know.”

He’s slightly regretful about it. She’s fun to snark with.

“Nope,” she says, looking satisfied. “I took the parachute.”

“The what?”

“I’m staying on here to help you out as a full-time nurse,” she clarifies. “The PT comes every morning, the OT every afternoon; I’ll assist with both and also handle helping you with additional ROM exercises, walking, medication, everything.”

Mick blinks. “Really? But your job…”

“It’ll be open for me when I’m done with you,” she says. “Double my pay plus benefits is too good an offer to pass up.”

Mick blinks again. 

“I’m gonna kill him,” he says blankly. “We can’t afford that.”

Shlomit pats Mick’s belly, where he has no burns and therefore can feel her doing it. “He paid half a year in advance,” she says. “I think he’s fine.”

“He’s literally burning money,” Mick says, still bewildered.

“Your insurance is covering a large part of it,” Shlomit offers, but that’s weird because as far as Mick was aware, he didn’t _have_ insurance. 

None of this makes sense.

At first, Mick doesn’t think about it too much. Len does weird things sometimes, and who is Mick to question how Len spends his money?

So Mick does his PT. He does his OT. He takes his medicine. He lights his fires on a strictly regulated basis so that he doesn’t get too anxious, monitored closely by Len and Ji-hyun.

He does _endless_ stretching.

Len comes by twice a day to help with the massages and the application of lotion, which he’s taken over. Shlomit is quite pleased with that; she says Mick’s more relaxed when Len’s the one applying it.

Not _Mick’s_ fault he associates her with agonizing pain. 

A week goes by.

“Half a year, you said?” he asks Shlomit.

“How’s that?”

“You said you were paid up for half a year?” he asks. “You think I’ll need you the whole time?”

She frowns at him. “Need, no,” she says. “But don’t worry; I’ve taken a year off of work, with an option to increase it to two.”

A cold chill runs down Mick’s back. “One to two years?” he says numbly.

“Your scars might not finish maturing until then,” she says. “Complications are pretty common – most hospitals recommend at least 18 to 36 months of close care. We’ll focus on improving your movement and capability, of course, but there’s always the risk of infection.”

Almost as if that conversation triggers it, Mick comes down with a hundred and three degree fever the next day.

It takes two weeks to fight it off. 

Len helps every day with the itching and the moisturizing and everything. 

“That wasn’t too bad,” Shlomit says encouragingly when she finally declares the infection gone. “You should’ve seen the one right after you arrived at the clinic.”

“You’re so cheerful,” Mick groans. “Be sure to keep that chirpy voice up during my funeral, will you?”

“Don’t be absurd,” she says. “If you’re not dead yet, we’re not going to let you die now. Not after all that hard work!”

“You just want the credit.”

“Hell yes I want the credit. You had burns over 60% of your body; that’s a 43% mortality rate.”

Mick pauses. He hadn’t realized it was quite that high.

“43%?” he asks.

“Between 43% and 57%,” she reports. “Most deaths occur within two, three weeks. Septic shock, infection, pneumonia…your immune system is fucked up and will remain fucked up for a good long while.”

She shrugs when Mick gapes at her. “This is a good place,” she tells him. “Not too warm, not too cold, lots of nature. There’s a porch for when you feel up to it – you’ll be able to go out in the sun more, as long as you remember that your skin is going to be extremely sensitive to temperature changes.”

“Sensitive to temperature changes.”

“You know that already,” Shlomit points out. “It goes along with your inability to sweat. No more temperature regulation where the burn was – and a _lot_ of your body was burned.”

Mick swallows. “How long does that last?”

“The sensitivity? I doubt it’ll ever go away. You’ll have to make sure not to go anywhere too hot and not to over-exert yourself; your temperature regulation is just gone. Why?”

“And – my lungs? How did that go? From the beginning.”

“You’re getting much better,” she says. “First we were worried about carbon monoxide poisoning, then we thought the swelling in your chest would threaten your airway, then there was the toxicity of the smoke...”

“Len knows all of this stuff?”

“Since day one,” she says. “He approved every one of your thirty-four surgeries.”

“ _Thirty four_?”

“Not the worst I’ve ever seen. Pretty bad, though. You had some issues up front with the skin grafts – we’re always worried about a delayed failure or some sort of skin breakdown.”  
This time she knocks on wood when she says it. “Don’t do it this time,” she tells him. “I really don’t recommend it.”

“I won’t,” Mick promises, swallowing hard.

Somehow, getting it all listed out like that, all at once, makes it real. 

He understands, now, why Len spent all that money on buying them a place out in the countryside, surrounded by green, just like Mick’s always liked. Why he made sure to pay with washed money that the cops wouldn’t track. Why he traded favors for the clean identities. 

Why he cared about details like the color of the walls.

Why he hired Mick’s favorite nurse.

Why Len would spend all of his hard-earned stolen money on Mick like this without taking half from Mick’s stashes.

Why any of it.

Mick had thought it was just Len being ridiculous, spending all this money and time when Mick’s just going to go back to being with Len wherever they may roam, but it’s not. This isn’t just an injury that he’ll jump back from, back to being Len’s partner, back to being in the game, back to the fight with the cops and the chase and watching Len’s back. 

This is Mick being put out to pasture.

This is _it_.

No wonder Len’s been so stone-faced all the time. Mick’s probably caused him more agony than anyone, ripping his heart in two. Thirty four surgeries, possibility of amputation, infections, carbon monoxide poisoning…

Mick’s out of date. 

Out of the running.

 _Out_.

No wonder Len went back on his promise to be out. He didn’t need to be out.

Mick is.

Ji-hyun tries to talk to Mick about it, but Mick refuses. Therapy won’t help this wound.

He hears Shlomit call Disha on the hall telephone, asking about depression and PTSD and treatments thereof.

He ignores it.

He lights the fires more and more, staring into his lighter, burning small pieces of papers to help relieve his anxiety, but it doesn’t really help.

He waits for the day that Len starts coming by less often.

Less often and less often, until he’s not coming by at all.

The day Mick turns on the news and sees that the brilliant Leonard Snart has got himself a brand new partner, someone who can stand tall beside him, someone who isn’t a burned-out useless shell.

Oddly enough, though, it doesn’t seem to be happening.

Len never seems to be gone more than a day. He’s there, every morning, to put lotion on Mick’s back and arms and legs, to give him a massage – which Shlomit could do instead and often does in the evenings if Mick’s feeling tense – almost without fail. 

It’s a month before Len misses a day.

Mick thinks to himself, _this is it_ , but Len’s back the next day, and he sticks around all day, that day, instead of disappearing in the evening like he often does. 

He sticks around that whole week, chattering like a magpie. 

After that, his visits become, if anything, even more regular. He’s there in the morning, leaves, returns in the evening. He brings movies and books and stories about people in Central. 

Mick doesn’t understand.

Doesn’t he know that Mick _gets it_? That Mick understands that he’s useless now?

But even his best attempts at chasing Len away, using his sharp tongue because he’s not up to using his fists, don’t make even the slightest dent. Len keeps coming around.

Mick needs to think of a way to do it. To let Len go, instead of being chained here by guilt or pity or whatever the fuck is motivating him.

He will.

And then he wakes up and sees the goat.


	2. Goats

Mick stares.

The goat, perched delicately on Mick’s belly, stares back down.

It is a very small goat. It’s pale white and speckled dove grey all over, except for a darker blotch on its eyes and again right above its tail.

The goat bleats.

It’s a little trilling sound.

Mick blinks.

“Hello to you, too,” he says.

The goat bleats a bit more and headbutts Mick’s face very lightly.

“Oh my _god_ ,” a voice says, and a woman rushes in. “I am so sorry.”

Mick blinks. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen this woman before. “Sorry?” he asks.

She points at the goat. “I have no idea how he got out again,” she confesses. “I mean, I know, goats, right? If there’s a hole in the fence, a goat will find it, that’s the saying, but I _swear_ we’ve blocked up all the holes and he’s _still_ managing to end up god only knows where every day.”

“Why is there a goat?” Mick asks. That seems like an important question.

The woman blinks at him. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry. My name’s Maple Dzvorak. Please call me Mab. I run the farm.”

“The…farm.”

“Yes,” Mab says. “The farm? Downstairs?” When Mick continues to look blankly at her, she clarifies, “The fully functional dairy farm attached to the land?”

“I did not know that,” Mick says. It _does_ explain the bird noises early in the morning and the grunting animal noises later on; he’d assumed that was some sort of noise machine or local wildlife. “We’re on a _farm_?”

Mab grins. “Yeah,” she says. “You are. No offense, but I don’t think your Mr. Snart was thinking very rationally when he bought the place. He literally ran in one day, looked at the house and offered us cash for it; I’m pretty sure he was just totally panicking the entire time. Had a wild sort of look in his eyes. Not that I object, of course; I get to keep doing what I do best, which right now is raising goats. We – well, my colleagues, Juanita and Rashid, anyway – sell the milk and the cheese at some of the local farmer’s markets. Any leftovers we’ve got we give to Pre down by old armory, she runs a clinic and knows all the non-corrupt food distribution places.”

“Really?” Mick asks. Mab nods. “That’s cool.”

“Want to come see?” she asks. “I know you’re still convalescing, but if you’d like to help me bring back Houdini here, I’d be happy to show you around, you being half-owner and all.”

Mick transfers himself to his wheelchair and the goat leaps straight into his lap and settles down, regal-like, as if he had been waiting for Mick to get with the program. 

Mick snorts. 

Arrogant little snot. Reminds him of Len. 

“He’s normally more standoffish than that,” Mab observes. “He’s kind of an introvert, except when he’s playing pranks on the other goats.

“Do you actually call him Houdini?” Mick asks her.

“Nah,” she says. “This is the newest batch of kids. We haven’t named ‘em yet. I just thought it fit because he’s always breaking in and out of places where he doesn’t belong, and making stupid jumps from one place to another and somehow making them. You have something in mind?”

“Yeah,” Mick says. “I’m calling this one _Boss_.”

Mab arches her eyebrows. 

“It fits, trust me,” Mick assures her. 

“You’re the –” she pauses, making Mick smirk because he knows she was about to say ‘boss’. “– owner.”

“What does that mean, anyway?” Mick asks. He has no idea what someone who owns a farm actually does. His parents were farmers, but it's been a long time since he was eleven. 

“Well, we weren’t exactly doing that well financially,” Mab says wryly. “Still aren’t. The family before you bought this place to make it into a farm because they thought it was ‘cute’, but it turned out they didn’t like it all that much. Too much dirt, not enough cute. And that was bad, because we’re not self-sustaining yet, so losing their support would mean we lose the farm. We looked for someone else to rent out the place to – the rent being how we planned to keep the farm running for a little longer.”

“And we’re the renters?”

“No,” Mab says patiently. “Mr. Snart showed up one day, asked about wheelchair accessibility, and bought the whole place – house, farm, everything – in a glorious, _glorious_ amounts of cash, then told me to just keep doing what I’m doing. Is he likely to keep up with that, do you think?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t care,” Mick says. “Carry on and so on.”

Mab wheels him down to the porch.

Mick wonders for a moment if this is a very well-thought-out kidnapping, but no. The goat is just too weird to be anything other than real. 

Sure enough, there are goats outside.

Actual goats.

A good number of them, too.

Mick is impressed, right up until one of little ones – even littler than the one sitting on his lap – barrels up the porch stairs and head-butts his shin.

_Hard_.

“If you were any bigger, that might have hurt,” Mick tells the goat. It’s even smaller than Boss.

The goat just headbutts him again. Then headbutts Mab and the door, too, for good measure.

“This one’s the runt,” Mab says, trying to hide a smile. “Makes up for it by being willing to fight literally anything at any time.”

“Good goat,” Mick says, smiling a little. He likes headbutting people, too.

Boss jumps down and nuzzles the little goat, which headbutts him, but lightly, and then nuzzles back. Then they go prancing off, Boss in the lead and the littler goat happily leaping from side to side in Boss’ wake.

“Fights anything, you say?” Mick says, watching them.

“Anything, everything, everyone,” Mab confirms. “Especially anyone who gets in, ah, Boss’ way. They’re inseparable.”

“I’m calling that one Mick,” Mick decides. “Or Mickey, anyway, till he’s grown.”

Mab shakes her head. “She. And don’t you dare name all of them,” she warns. “Some are for selling as breeding stock, not milk.”

“I’ll keep it limited,” Mick lies.

“Mick,” Shlomit calls, coming out through the porch door. “I didn’t know you were coming outside.”

Little Mickey turns on a heel and zips back up the stairs to headbutt her, too.

“Nice,” Mick says approvingly. “Go, Mickey.” 

Mickey bleats proudly, then goes to rejoin Boss in the field.

“Did you just attack me with a goat?” Shlomit asks, looking amused. “You have attack goats, now?”

“Mickey’s a good little fighter,” Mick says.

“'Mickey' is a _girl_ ,” Mab says. 

“So?”

Mab considers for a moment, then shrugs. “Have it your way,” she says. “Shlomit, can he stay out? I wanted to show him the farm.”

“Only if we put sunscreen on first,” Shlomit says firmly, but in the end Mick gets his tour. 

They have a fair sized herd of goats. They get fed and graze and after a bit of watching, Mick asks Mab, “Doesn’t the food affect how their cheese tastes?”

“Yeah,” Mab says. “I’m hoping to experiment when we have a bit more money – maybe partitioning them off or something? – but we’re not quite there yet. Here, let me introduce you to our crew – they help with the milking and the cheese process –”

Len comes back that evening.

“I just got headbutted by a goat,” he says, looking bemused. 

“Did you now?” Mick asks innocently.

“I wouldn’t have commented on it, except that I’m informed that they’re your, uh, attack goats now.”

“Yep,” Mick says, lacing his fingers together and leaning back in his wheelchair with a satisfied smirk.

Len looks him dead in the eye. “Mick,” he says, sounding serious.

Mick’s smirk disappears. “What?”

“Next time, you need to tell me before you adopt any kids.”

It takes a few seconds for the pun to hit and then Mick groans and puts his head in his hands while Len laughs his goddamn ass off.

“You’re a _dick_ ,” Mick grouses as Len wipes the tears out of his eyes. “It wasn’t even that funny.”

“Your _face_ was that funny.”

“Fuck you. I thought you wanted to say something serious!”

Len sits down, still sniggering.

Boss noses his way into the room, closely followed by Mickey. Mickey immediately goes straight to Len, who immediately scoops her up to sit on his lap.

She noses around his lap a little and then makes herself at home, while Boss starts casing the room.

“I like this one,” Len says, petting Mickey. “Good goat. Fierce goat. Yes you _are_.”

“She is, that,” Mick says. “Fights anything she sees. Headbutts anything and everyone.”

“I like her,” Len declares. “This one’s my favorite.”

Mick hides a smile.

“I like that, too,” Len says.

“Like what?”

“You seem – happier. Today. You’ve been down recently.”

Mick arches his eyebrows. “We actually talking about this? Thought we didn’t do feelings.”

“Ji-hyun threatened to light me on fire if we didn’t,” Len admits cheerfully. “And she says you’ve taught her everything she knows about arson.”

“Aww,” Mick says. “She remembers all that? Best shrink ever.”

“She’s pretty tough.”

“You should see her.”

Len makes a face.

“I’m telling you,” Mick says. This is an old argument. “Going a few times won’t hurt anyone.”

“I’ll think about it,” Len says, instead of his usual ‘it hurts _me_ ’ rebuttal.

Mick arches his eyebrows.

Len shrugs. “I’ve had some issues recently,” he says. “Recurring and inconveniently timed panic attacks. Maybe seeing a shrink isn’t the end of the world.”

“No, it definitely is,” Mick says. “Leonard Snart agreeing to go see a shrink? Definitely a sign of the apocalypse.”

“Fuck off,” Len says, but pleasant and friendly-like. “So what’s going on? Ji-hyun says you barely talk to her about anything, Shlomit is about ten seconds away from suggesting even _more_ pills, and you’ve been acting –” He hesitates.

“Like a dick?” Mick offers.

“Like you’ve finally figured out that you don’t want me around anymore,” Len says. His knuckles are white, Mick notices, wrapped around the edges of the chair; little Mickey is nosing at his wrist anxiously. 

It takes a few seconds for Len’s words to sink in.

“Wait,” Mick says, because _what even_ , “ _me_ not want _you_ around anymore?!”

Len nods stiffly. He’s as tense as a tightly wound spring. 

“ _Why_?”

“It was my idea,” Len bursts out. “That stupid fucking job in Shreveport – I was the one who wanted to go, _I_ was the one who should’ve cased the place better –”

“Are you _still_ beating yourself up about that?” Mick asks, amazed. “Jesus, Len. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

“You got burned,” Len says, and his eyes aren’t focusing right. He’s looking at a memory, not at Mick. “You _burned_ , Mick – you were _screaming_ –”

Mick feels a stab of regret. “You always knew I wanted to burn in the end,” he says gruffly, trying to cover it up.

“I always thought I’d be there by your side,” Len says. “Not watching.”

He closes his eyes, takes a deep, shuddering breath. 

Mick frowns, watching him. This whole thing, it hit Len bad; much worse than Mick had noticed. This isn’t like Len, who hates his emotions and tries to avoid them when possible. 

This isn’t Len trying to cut things off. This is Len off-balance, unsteady, making stupid decisions and sticking with them out of stubbornness, shaking and hurting and Mick’s only ever seen him like this when –

“Is Lisa okay?” Mick asks.

Len gives him a look. “She’s _fine_ ,” he says. “Where’d that even come from?”

Mick didn’t really doubt it, but it makes him feel funny inside, that Len can be knocked off his feet so bad by something happening to Mick in the same way as with Lisa. Mick would’ve said that Lisa was the only person Len really loved, before today.

Today he thinks – really believes, for the first time – that maybe Lisa’s not the only one Len loves.

“You’re not planning on ditching me,” he says softly. Len doesn’t give up on people he loves, not ever; that’s why he loves so few of them.

“Ditching you?” Len exclaims, opening his eyes and looking offended. “Why the fuck would I do _that_?”

“I’m no use to you now, am I?” Mick points out gently. “Shlomit says my recovery could take – it’s not months, Lenny. It’s years. Between my beat-up lungs and my beat-up arms, I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can stand by your side again, if ever.”

“So what?” Len says challengingly. “I don’t give a damn about that.”

“You don’t carry dead weight.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t just use you for your muscle, Mick; you’re my _partner_. You do so much more than that.”

Mick scowls.

“You do,” Len insists. “You keep an eye on the crew –”

“They’d stab you in the back otherwise,” Mick grumbles. “You have terrible judgment of people. Remember Charlie?”

“– you keep me from doing anything too dumb –”

“As much as _possible_.”

“– and you keep me from going over the line,” Len finishes. He rubs at his eyes. He looks so tired, suddenly, the bags under his eyes coming into clear relief. Mick doesn’t know what Len does all day, but he bets it has something to do with how Len’s been spending money like it grows on trees. Len’s stash isn’t endless. “It’s not the way it was before, without you. I’ve worked without you before, when we split up, but I was always angry, then. I knew I’d get you back eventually and I worked every job thinking _I’ll show him_ the whole damn time. But this time I know exactly where you are, and why you’re not with me, and it’s my goddamn fault.”

“It ain’t your fault, Len,” Mick says again. “You saw the flames and ran out; I didn’t.”

“It’s my job,” Len says firmly. “My job, my crew; it’s on _me_ to get everyone out. I know about you and fire, Mick; me better than anyone else in the world, except maybe Ji-hyun. I should’ve prioritized getting you out of there. I should’ve figured out ahead of time that that warehouse would go up so quick.”

“You can’t plan for _everything_.”

“I should’ve run in to get you out,” Len says. 

Mick frowns. “You did,” he says. He remembers that. Len had dragged him out, half the way, ditching only when he saw the ambulances coming. 

“Not soon enough,” Len says. “Third degree burns could’ve been two. The smoke that fucked over your lungs – you wouldn’t have breathed so much in, if I hadn’t run out after some pointless yelling. I should’ve realized I needed to get you out some other way.”

“It’s not your fault,” Mick says. “I’m serious. I don’t blame you.”

Len smiles humorlessly. “You should.”

“I _don’t_ , and I’m not gonna,” Mick says firmly. “You don’t get to pick who I blame.”

Len shakes his head a little. “Fine,” he says. “Then you don’t get to get rid of me, either, even if you think it’s for my own good.”

Len’s always been a perceptive little shit. 

“Fine,” Mick says. “But what am I gonna do now? I've got nothing except being an arsonist and some crew's muscle, other than being your partner. What do I _do_?”

Len shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ll start planning my jobs here again, if you want to tell me I’m dumb during the planning stages.”

“You’d _better_ plan them here,” Mick says, alarmed by the idea that Len has been planning some of his more ridiculous stupid-ass stunts without him. 

“I don’t know what else.” Len frowns. “What about the kitchen?”

Mick frowns in return. “What about the kitchen?”

“Well, you like cooking, don’t you?” Len says, like he hasn’t voraciously devoured everything Mick’s ever made him (except for the greens) for nearly two decades. 

“What’ve you been eating?” Mick asks, suddenly suspicious. The answer had better not be ‘fast food’.

“Hospital cafeteria meals, mostly.”

That’s _worse_.

“Fine,” Mick says. “I’ll cook for you again.”

“We’ll need to renovate the kitchen,” Len says. “Adaptive stuff.”

“More ovens,” Mick says automatically. He’s always wanted to renovate a kitchen to his liking. He has _feelings_ about appliances.

“You ain't even _seen_ the kitchen!”

“You _always_ need more ovens.”

“Fine,” Len says. “More ovens. I’ll call a guy. But this is coming out of _your_ stash.”

Mick smiles. 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Is there any reason _not_ to try roses?” Mick asks, picking Bumblebee, the newest runt in the litter and Mickey’s newest playmate, off the floor before she eats the rug. “They eat the neighbor’s patch all the goddamn time whether we want them too or not.”

“I mean, I guess,” Mab says, frowning thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be that hard to keep track of the ones that eat nowhere else and segregate their cheese…okay, I have to know. I know you well enough by this point. What recipe are you thinking?”

“Taillevent mentioned a rose-tinted pottage...”

“Hah! I _knew_ you had a reason!”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I was also thinking we could vary the type of rennet we use,” Mick says. He lays out the plan he’s been working on - done up like Len's blueprints - and points to the various boxes he’s created. “See, I don’t know if it’ll have any effect, but I was listening to a book that said that vegetable or animal-based makes a difference in the –”

“Can we go back to stealing stuff?” Len bitches from where he’s lying face-down on the couch.

“No,” Mick says. “Also, you’re reading me the next two chapters of that book tonight, so don’t smother yourself before then.”

“Uuuuuuugh.”

“He’s just bitter that his last job just finished and he’s bored again already,” Mick tells Mab. Len enforces the lying low part of a job as strictly as he does the rest, but what he’d never let on to his crews is that he really, _really_ hates it, too.

Mick’s happy, though; it means Len will be spending the next few weeks here. 

“ _I’m_ just happy you’re not Family affiliated criminals,” Mab says dryly. “It’s Central: I’ll accept criminals, but a girl has got to draw the line somewhere.”

“Speaking of lines,” Mick asks, putting Bumblebee down. She prances over to Len. They all love Len, every one of them. “How are Billy and Nanny T. Goat settling in?”

Mab groans.

Len sniggers into his couch cushion.

“This is your fault,” Mick informs him.

“Yeah, I know,” Len says. “But I couldn’t just _leave_ them there!”

Mick rolls his eyes. “You didn’t have to drop them off and _run away without explanation_.”

“There was no explanation!” Len protests. 

“No,” Mab says tartly. “There is no explanation for giving a _goat farm_ a gift in the form of two baby _alpacas_.”

“They were malnourished and sad,” Len says firmly. “That wealthy idiot wanted them as pets, but just shoved them in a room and basically forgot about them. They were baaing softly in sadness. I regret nothing.”

Mab sighs. “Well,” she says, “they were babies and babies bounce back pretty well. That being said, they’re being raised by the goats, so they _definitely_ think they’re goats now. Those names didn’t help.”

“Boss adopted ‘em,” Mick says with satisfaction. 

Len grumbles. He’s still never entirely forgiven Mick for naming the goat after him, especially when Mick points out that Boss’s tendency to run jail-breaks from just about anywhere and also the fact that he’s more or less taken over the flock despite being only a couple of years old are really quite similar to their namesake’s own actions. 

The fact that Mickey never grew all that big and ended up being the smallest, fiercest goat in the entire herd has only mollified that annoyance slightly.

“That’s going to be interesting in a few years,” Mab sighs. “But sure, let’s talk rennet.”

“You know what,” Len says, sitting up. “I’m going to go steal a diamond.”

“You’re doing no such thing.”

“I am too! There’s one coming in to Central City museum. I saw a flyer earlier today.”

“Do you have a _reason_ to steal a diamond?”

“Yeah,” Len says. “Not being here to discuss rennet. I _know_ what that’s made of.”

Mick snorts and wheels over to the couch just to smack Len.

He doesn’t need the wheelchair all the time anymore, just on days like today, when his joints start acting up and everything is sore. Shlomit has returned to her day job, though she checks in once a week to run him through his PT and OT exercises because she doesn’t trust him. Mick’s pretty sure Len pays her for doing it, though he doesn’t think there’s an official contract or anything. 

Mick still needs the massages and the lotion on a daily basis, which Len manages with the fierce regularity of the drill sergeant that secretly lives in his head even if his hands are always gentle; and Mick slathers on sunscreen like a dying man before going out for a regular day out on the farm. Mab and the rest of the workers have strict orders to watch him to make sure that he doesn’t overdo it, because he _has_ collapsed from heatstroke from exercising too hard – turns out the body’s ability to sweat is really quite crucial to things like exercise or even sitting around, if the day is hot enough. He’s got some gait issues left over, which he’s usually fine with, though some days call for a cane and others for crutches or the chair; his legs have never quite uncurled the full way out, though Disha has looked him over and declared that it’s as good as modern surgery can get him. 

The carbon monoxide poisoning did come back to kick his ass with a pneumonia infection that recurs every year, but on the other hand, the damage that happened to his kidneys – Disha uses cheerful terms like ‘tubular necrosis’ and ‘acute renal failure’ which make Len go white-lipped and distant – has basically gone away for good. 

The brief relapse he had into what Disha called ‘burn delirium’ is best never discussed. He never gets back most of the memories he had of the weeks leading up to the job that went wrong, but Len informs him they were pretty boring anyway – typical job lead-up. 

Len is in fact seeing a therapist at long last, one that Ji-hyun recommended after her initial session with him. Apparently, Len does as well with tough old Jewish ladies as Mick does with equally tough old Korean ladies. 

They apparently spend about 10 minutes criticizing each other’s family at the start of each session, just to get into the mood. 

All in all, Mick isn’t actually unhappy with his life right now. Sure, he misses the game - the local biker gang is happy to indulge him in bar fights, which helps with the excitement and violence even if he suspects they're not going all in, and Len has established a tough-as-nails reputation that is starting to be scarily bloodthirsty but at least keeps him safe – but he likes what he’s doing now, too.

The dairy farm is doing well, he’s named every single one of the goats, and he goes into Central three times a week to sell at the farmer’s markets, with Juanita and Rashid taking the opportunity to search out new markets further afield like they’ve always wanted to. 

He cooks for Len, who comes home every day he can, and Lisa whenever she’s in the area. Mab, Shlomit, and Disha are all regular invitees, and the goats – led by Boss, as always – make regular incursions into the household to try to eat some of Mick’s cooking. Len’s trickier than the goats, though, so he’s set up a system of sweet-smelling boxes for the goats to find that makes them feel like they’ve accomplished something while maintaining Mick’s strict diets for each of them.

Life is pretty good. 

Of course, Mick would be a disgrace to his Irish heritage if he wasn’t inherently suspicious of such things.

So when he flicks on the TV not a month after Len’s decision to go steal a diamond and finds Len _fighting a bolt of lightning_ , he’s almost not surprised.

The news starts by reporting a scuffle on the transit, people with liquid nitrogen; that sounds like Len. They mention a Streak – helpfully, they give a short summary of what’s known about it, which is literally nothing but conspiracy theories – and the next thing they report is a fight in a movie theater.

There are pictures – crappy, cell-phone recordings – of Len using some sort of futuristic gun that freezes anything it touches.

And then –

Well. 

He waits until Len gets home – a train! He jumped off a train! What the _fuck?!_ – to say anything.

Len slinks into the house like a man with a guilty conscience, and he jumps near a foot in the air when Mick clears his throat from where he’s sitting on the couch, his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed in a glare.

“I thought you’d be asleep,” Len says.

“You mean you _hoped_.”

“…you saw the news.”

“I saw the news.”

“I got you a present?” Len offers.

Mick arches his eyebrows. “If it’s a diamond, I told you years ago, I don’t want one. I’m not that type of floozy.”

Len snorts. “Yeah, no. It’s this.”

‘This’ turns out to be a gun. A gun that works on principles of heat, everything from a flamethrower to a tight laser of heat so hot it melts metal.

Mick loves it on sight.

“You want me by your side?” he asks, examining it. He’ll take it apart, later; he’ll figure out how it works. He’ll know every inch of it, backwards and forwards, soon enough. He’ll do the same for Len’s cold gun – he’s always been the more mechanically minded of the two of them. He might not read the way Len does, he might not talk the way Len does, but he can make a machine sing under his hands.

“No,” Len says, and it doesn’t even hurt anymore when he says it, because Mick might not be able to stand by Len when he goes on crazy missions anymore, but Mick’s the one Len comes home to every day when he can, and he’s the one Len defers to on the craziness of a given mission. Len doesn’t trust himself, not all the way, not since the fire; Mick is his reminder not to let the ice in his veins freeze him solid.

“Then what’s it for?”

Len’s smile quirks up. “It’s a bribe,” he says. “For helping me plan out how to beat a superhero.”

“So it’s a hero, then?”

“Just a man,” Len confirms. “With a bleeding heart.”

Mick grins. “My favorite.”


	3. Heroes

“So, did it work?” Mick asks when Len swans in. “I assume since you’re here and not in a secret prison somewhere, it couldn’t have gone _that_ badly.”

“That was a _delight_ ,” Len says. He’s beaming like a maniac. 

Mick shakes his head in amusement. It's been a while since he's seen Len all jumped-up on adrenaline and loving every last second; Len's heists have tended more towards cautious and controlled recently. This, though, this is classic Len: running on the very edge of danger with a smirk plastered on his face and his heart singing.

It's good to see.

“So, anyway, I lured him out, no problem,” Len says, throwing himself down on the couch next to Mick, utterly ignoring the papers Mick had been perusing a few minutes earlier. He just did a thing; now he tells Mick about it. It's a system - their system - and it works. “No, that’s not right; it _was_ a problem. First he didn’t show up to the first time I set something up – the car job thing I told you about –”

“Yes,” Mick says dryly. “I know. You called me right after and complained about it for _way_ too long.”

“Four minutes, twenty seconds!”

“As I said: way too long.”

“Shut up. Anyway. I got you that painting you liked –”

Mick does like it. Fire & Ice – it sits right in the living room, now. He's tested it out and he can see it from the kitchen when he cooks. He looks forward to cooking with it in view in the future. 

“– but he _still_ didn’t show up, though I did have a really nice fight with the cops.”

Mick nods. “And so you pinched his buddy?”

“Ramon,” Len confirms. “I thought Snow at first, but you're right; she’s a tough one. Your idea about kidnapping Ramon’s brother to intimidate him worked beautifully.”

Of course it did – it was Len’s own idea, tossed out in the brainstorming stage, which Mick had salvaged and fed back to him. All the best ideas are, really. 

“Anyway, so I released a video challenging the Flash to show up, and he did. We had the – it was like the showdown at the OK Corral, Mick, it was _amazing_ – the cops made up anti-ice shields, like we figured they would, but they didn’t have nothing that could stand against the heat gun –”

“Good,” Mick says. “Ramon try to change your name to Icy-Hot?”

Len snorts. “Nah, nothing of the sort. I think he hates changing names; or else he was concerned about copyright infringement or something. So I lured the Flash to a one-on-one, right in the middle of town, right out there in front of all the cameras and police and everything – but he was – _damn_ , he was fast –”

“Got him to slip with the fire hydrant?”

“It was beautiful,” Len says dreamily. 

“Then you hit him with the heat gun?”

“Oh yeah. Fried all the electronics in his suit – then I challenged him to a rematch, saying we ought to keep down the collateral damage –”

Len looks smug as a cat post-canary. 

“You got his name first, right?”

“Ramon sang like a bird when his brother was threatened. Didn’t even have to do anything to either of them.”

“And the rematch?”

“He ran us out to middle of nowhere in the woods. We made a deal – no deaths in exchange for him not running me into that little prison of his. I keep his name safe and don’t fuck with his family and friends. Going forward, we go up one-to-one every time.” 

Finally, Mick cracks a smile. “Sounds like you’ve got yourself a nemesis.”

“I got myself a _superhero_ nemesis,” Len crows. 

“Mazel tov,” Mick says. Better a superhero than Charlie. Not that Len thinks of Charlie as a nemesis, that's more of a Mick thing. “Now sit; dinner’s almost ready, and I want you to try the new cheeses before we name ‘em and send ‘em to market.”

Len’s glowing like the face of the sun all evening. A superhero vs. supervillain fight – practically a dream come true for a drama queen like Len.

“What next?” Mick asks, serving up dinner and sitting down. He’s a bit sore – stress makes everything hurt, and worrying about Len is stressful – but Len will give him a massage and moisturizer later. 

Len grins toothily. “I have some ideas.”

‘Some ideas’ turns out to be code for an all-out war with the Families and tricking the Flash into helping him take them down.

"Did you really just announced to all of Central City that there's a new Godfather in town?" Mick asks, squinting up from a letter one of his old buddies from prison had written him. It contained both gossip and a not-so-subtle request for him to figure out when Len had gone and _lost his mind_.

"Yep," Len says.

"This is still according to the plan?"

"Yep."

Mick puts down the letter. "I'll bite. _Why_?"

"Supervillainy," Len replies, like that explains everything.

Mick glares.

"Fine, fine. As a criminal, I had a good measure of respect, built up by my rep for competence but also for cold-hearted ruthlessness. People know to obey my rules, or else – but that only applied if they work with me. As a supervillain, though, I've got to work on a bigger scale if I'm gonna be feared like I need to be."

Mick's not quite getting the relevance between 'bigger scale' and 'declaring war on the Mob'.

"Besides," Len adds, "everyone wants to get rid of the Families. That means that the Flash has to team up with me about it, if he wants it to happen, and that's gonna drive him nuts."

Well, that explained everything.

Mick invests in enough comic books to confirm that Len is just indulging in childhood fantasies of superhero-supervillain team-ups, and writes back to his old buddy with reassurances.

Some reassurances.

Wouldn't do to be undercutting the supervillain's new reputation, now would it. 

Of course, even with Mick putting his two cents in, Len's plans are still totally nuts.

Honestly, Mick is happy to stay out of _that_ clusterfuck, though he does get a full rendition of it both in the initial planning stages and the final version when Len comes home. 

The amended version apparently involved making the Flash think Len was breaking the deal when he was actually saving some girl named Iris’ life, and also a gigantic free-for-all against a team of mobster assassin thugs. 

“We work surprisingly well together,” Len says happily when it's all over. “Though I did ice him and leave his feet stuck in ice while I made my escape.”

“Of course you did,” Mick says, rolling his eyes. “Wouldn’t be suitably dramatic any other way, would it?”

“Exactly!”

“So, was the goal of this to get the Santinis and Darbiniyans and the rest of 'em to be terrified of you as the new player in town, or was it to get the Flash more confused about your position on the good-bad scale than a teenager analyzing their sexuality?”

“Why not both?” Len asks. “I can multitask. Also, do we have more of that garlic chevre? That was something special.”

“Rolled it in garlic ash myself,” Mick says happily. He’d also nominated himself to be the one in charge of burning the garlic into ash, too, which he enjoyed. “Better lay claim now; we’re putting half of what’s left over for aging and selling the other half.”

“Consider claim laid,” Len says. “How are the goats doing?”

“Pretty good – Mickey’s gotten over her ear infection, so Boss will hopefully stop caterwauling his anxiety all over the place at all hours. Our neighbor may want to sue us over the roses, but Mab convinced him to settle for some cheesecake. Also, the geese are back.”

“The murder twins?”

Mick sniggers. “They’re not murderous,” he says.

“To _you_ maybe.”

“I think they’re the ones I fed when they were little,” Mick says. “Remember the first year, when I was depressed all the time? There were the eggs that just hatched in that awful rainstorm?”

“Yeah, and you fucking babied those geese. I distinctly remember refilling those goddamn eyedroppers and waking you up every two hours so you could feed ‘em.”

“Yeah, well. I think these are those ones.”

“So, Malice and Spite? Knew I named ‘em right.”

“Hey,” Mick says mildly. “They’re watching the goats for me.”

“What, really?”

“They fought off a poacher and a coyote so far.”

“We have _guard geese_? I thought we were training the goats as attack goats. Not _geese_.”

“Always good to a attack a problem from multiple angles. Go make friends, Lenny. They’ll like you, I swear. They’ll remember you.” He thinks for a second. “I think.”

Len sighs dramatically.

The geese _do_ remember him, and come honking up to rub their faces in his pants like beloved dogs. 

Len’s heart melts.

He always did like creatures that were large and loud and violent. Mick’s had the benefit of that fondness of Len’s for years.

The geese are what warn Mick that Len’s brought someone back home that he oughtn’t have.

“ _Holy crap_!” a youthful voice shouts, followed by a flash of lightning that goes straight up a tree, the geese in hot pursuit, honking furiously the entire time.

“The Flash, I assume,” Mick says mildly from the porch.

“Malice! Spite! Down! He’s a friend! Well, an ally anyway. Mick, tell them to stop.”

Mick whistles.

It’s the same whistle he uses to announce dinner.

The geese abandon the tree – albeit with baleful glares – and waddle back over to Mick, who offers them some corn from his hand. 

“Are the murder geese gone?” the boy in the tree asks.

“Yeah, you can get down now.”

“Why’d you bring the Flash here?” Mick asks. He squints at the kid. “You’re younger than I imagined. What’s your name?”

“You haven’t told him who I am?” the kid asks. “Really?”

“We agreed I wouldn’t tell anybody,” Len points out, eliding the fact that Mick does not even slightly care.

The kid looks impressed.

“In fact, if you hadn’t just demonstrated your powers, he wouldn’t have ever known it was you,” Len adds pointedly.

Now the kid looks sheepish. “Yeah. I’m – not always that good with discretion.” He turns to Mick and sticks out a hand. “Hi! My name’s Barry Allen.”

Mick looks at the hand in amusement. “Barry Allen. Any relation to Doc Allen, Iron Heights?”

“Uh. Yeah? I mean, that’s my dad.”

“Good man,” Mick says. “Why are you here?”

“I need help,” Barry says. “Getting the metas out of the pipeline. We have only 12 hours –”

“Plenty of time, then,” Mick says. “Sit.”

Barry climbs the porch, only to be earnestly headbutted by Mickey.

“Is that a goat?” Barry asks, taking a step back.

“This _is_ a dairy farm,” Mick points out. “I sell cheese at the McFeeney Park Farmer’s Market every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday.”

“You – do?”

“I do,” Mick says. “Why the surprise?”

“When Snart said he had to go talk to his partner about whether or not he’d help me out, I kinda assumed he meant, uh, you know, a _criminal_ partner.”

“He did,” Mick says dryly. “I’m retired.”

“I’m not,” Len says. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”

Mickey headbutts Barry again.

“Oh no!” Barry says, crouching down and pretending to fall over. “You’ve discovered the Flash’s one true weakness! Adorable goats!”

Mickey happily climbs on top of him and bleats her success to the world. 

“Help me! I’ve been defeated!”

Even Mick has to crack a smile. The kid’s as cute as a button. 

Mickey bleats a bit more then hops off and prances over to Len for her reward of scritches, which Len promptly provides. “Good goat,” Len says. “Best goat. There you go, defeating my enemies. _Good_ goat.”

Mick snorts. “So what’s the problem?”

“Transport and destination,” Len says, looking up and falling back into business mode. “Barry here had a dumb suggestion, which I’ve taken the liberty of ignoring. We need to get them out of the city so they don’t start trouble, which for half that crowd is going to be an issue. And no, we are _not_ handing them over to the _Suicide Squad_.”

“Yeah,” Barry says, gnawing at his lower lip. “I didn’t really realize that ARGUS had that sort of rep. Guess we ought to err on the side of letting them go, but, well, they _really_ hate us. They might side with Wells against us.”

Mick frowns. “I thought you were buddies with Wells?”

“Turns out he’s evil. And, uh, from the future.”

“Right,” Mick says, deciding he doesn’t care. “Boss, what’s your plan?”

Len lays it out.

“Wow,” Mick says at the end. “That’s…dumb.”

Barry’s face falls.

“But salvageable,” Mick adds. “Answer me four questions and I’ll give you the okay to go ahead.”

Four questions later – all answered to Mick’s satisfaction, the plan being adjusted each time to take into account the failings Mick points out – Barry is literally vibrating in place with excitement. “This is a really good plan, guys,” he says.

“It’s all Len’s work,” Mick says. He used to call Len ‘Snart’ or ‘boss’ in public, keeping them at arms’ length to hide how well they knew each other, but he’s fallen out of the habit and he finds he can’t bring himself to start again now. “I just criticize until he comes up with something better.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s the other half of the brain,” Len says. “Not to mention my back-up plan when it comes to being muscle.”

Mick hadn’t known that Len still thought of him that way. He’s pleased.

“And you’re the one with the heat gun, aren’t you?” Barry asks, nodding at where it sits by Mick’s side. “ _You’re_ the real Heatwave, not whatever Snart here was leaving as red herrings for us.”

Mick shakes his head. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “I don’t get a supervillain name; I’m _retired_.”

“Had enough of the criminal life?”

Mick pulls his collar out, revealing the top line of the scars that go all the way down his back. “Had an incident with a fire that didn’t stop in time.”

“…ouch.”

“Good luck with the evac,” Mick says, shrugging. Kid’s not wrong. Ouch is definitely the right word. “Oh, and Len – your sister’s in town.”

“I know,” Len says. “She seduced Ramon for her own gun. And a nickname.”

“You really need to stop collecting your little band of rogues,” Barry says. “Or you’ll start outnumbering Team Flash.”

“Rogues,” Len says. “Heh. Cute.”

“Oh, great,” Mick says. “Now you’ve gone and given him _ideas_.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

At some point in the summer, Mick decides to dub one of his new goats – just purchased from a friendly merchant to help increase their flock – Zipper, because he’s always anxiously darting from side to side. 

After watching a few more of the Flash’s behaviors, Mick starts wondering if Zipper ought to have been named Flash instead.

Still, when Barry shows up on Mick’s doorstep during an early summer rainstorm, looking miserable, Mick points him to a chair and shoves Zipper into his lap.

Zipper looks pretty shell-shocked by the experience.

Barry has a similar expression.

“Pet him,” Mick instructs, offering Barry a brush. “He’s got anxiety issues; he needs a lot of care.”

“Anxiety issues, huh?” Barry says, taking the brush and starting to gently run it through Zipper’s hair. “I can relate.”

“Is what you want urgent?” Mick asks. “I’ve got to finish a thing.”

“No, no. Not urgent at all.”

When Mick comes back outside with bowls piled high with dinner a half-hour later, both Barry and Zipper look much more relaxed.

Mick hands Barry the bowl.

“What’s this?”

“Pasta with goat cheese,” Mick says. “Eat.”

Barry obediently eats. “This is really good,” he says. 

“I don’t do much else,” Mick points out.

“Sure you do,” Barry says. “You run a farm, you make cheese, you _sell_ cheese…” He sighs. “That sounds nice. Productive. You’re doing good. Not hurting anybody.” His lips twist. “Wish I could say the same.”

Mick studies Barry, who looks thin and sad and like his battery is all out of charge. Mick remembers feeling like that.

“Right,” Mick says. “You come here on Saturday.”

“I…what?”

“This Saturday,” Mick says. “Len and I are having a barbeque. I can do your training at the same time.”

Barry blinks. “Uh,” he says. “Training?”

“You’re going to help me at the farmer’s market for the rest of the summer,” Mick says.

“I am?”

“I’m not good with heat,” Mick says. “The burns don’t sweat, and that means I can’t regulate temperature, which means I can’t exert myself too much. And that makes summer markets hard. You’re going to help me out.”

Barry opens his mouth to protest.

“No arguing,” Mick says sternly.

Barry closes his mouth.

“Now, did you come here for a reason, or did you just need some goat therapy?”

Barry looks down at the sleepy and happy Zipper in his lap. “I don’t – I don’t think I really had a reason to come,” he admits. “Not really. I’ve been working all night as the Flash to try to repair some of the damage from the black hole and I was running so much and I can’t seem to stop running because if I stop running then I have to think about things – and then I thought to myself, what about the farm and I thought about all the goats and everything being wrecked because of the black hole – because of what I did -” His breathing is coming harder and harder, his hands starting to vibrate as he moves them through the air. Not yet a panic attack, but well on its way.

Mick recognizes the signs from Len.

“Try this,” Mick says, and plops a spoonful of the chocolate-milk goat cheese mix he’s been working on perfecting (because Len is a literal infant at times) right into Barry’s mouth. 

Barry swallows.

“That’s _amazing_ ,” he says after a moment of blissful good-food noises.

“Not too sweet?”

“It’s _disgustingly_ sweet,” Barry says. “I need more. So much more.”

Mick nods, pleased. “Excellent. As you see, the farm’s doing fine – Boss leaped for the sky a few times, but Mab caught him. I think he wants to fly.”

Barry laughs, a shaky little sound. “Maybe I’ll take him for a run,” he says. “It’s almost like flying.”

“First rule of goats,” Mick says. “Do not listen to the goats. They are scoundrels and don't know what they want.”

Barry nods, smiling a little. Nothing like the megawatt smile he had before.

“Now, I need a taste tester for a few more rounds of –”

“Yes, please!” Barry’s stomach rumbled in agreement.

“Finish your dinner, first,” Mick says.

And that’s how he gets an assistant for the summer farmer’s market. 

“Did you just adopt _my superhero_?” Len whines. 

“He’s _depressed_ ,” Mick says. “He won’t make a very good superhero for you to fight if he’s all worn out and sad.”

“…stop making sense.”

Barry is ordered to show up for regular goat therapy, too, which is what Mick calls “sitting in the goat pen and letting them prance all around you” because all of his goats are drama queens. He never should’ve let Boss be the leader of the herd.

Not that he’s ever been able to stop any version of Len from doing anything. 

Barry starts unwinding a bit and smiling more.

He also _loves_ the farmer’s market, with its mix of smiling faces and cheerful cursing of customers and trades that happen behind the stalls – meat for drink, sweets for savory, vegetables for everyone because the zucchini went crazy again. It's people, the sort of people he hasn't really let himself get close to since he put on the cowl; the reason he does everything he does. 

Of course, even they can’t sate a speedster’s stomach, but Mick pulls out the big barbeque he usually reserves for parties and spends a lot of time grilling, albeit with many breaks and Len (and within days, Barry, too) fussing over him potentially dehydrating himself. 

Not that Len and Barry have entirely gotten along. The snark is _endless_. And rather pointed, at times. Not at all friendly. 

More jabs at each other than anything else, really.

Well, that won't do. If Barry's going to keep coming around - and seeing the improvement in his mood since he started coming around, Mick is determined that he will - then they're going to have to get over this silly superhero-supervillain rivalry. 

Mick decides to take matters into his own hands.

He starts with dinner.

“This is delicious,” Len says, halfway through the meal. “I don’t think you’ve made kebabs in a while.”

“Amazing,” Barry agrees.

“Thanks,” Mick says, pulling out his phone and setting it to camera mode. “It’s goat.”

He takes a picture of their betrayed and horrified faces before starting to laugh.

“So it’s not goat?” Barry asks hopefully.

“Oh, it’s goat all right,” Micks says. “but not _our_ goats. We have dairy goats, not meat goats.”

Well, they have a few older males that maybe get traded for meat purposes, but he’s not going to tell them that.

“You’re evil,” Len says.

“Yes,” Mick says. 

“And he says he’s not a supervillain,” Barry says, shaking his head.

“I know, right?” Len says.

Then they remember that they’re enemies and scoot away from each other. 

Mick rolls his eyes. 

The next step is even more dastardly. 

“Okay,” Mick says, gesturing at the pen. “The new set of kids have been weaned and are ready to be named. I am, for a limited time only, taking suggestions.”

He locks the door behind them.

Barry and Len spends six hours sitting in a pen, surrounded by baby goats, going one by one and debating what name really _fits_ each one.

There are certain inducements that not even superhero-supervillain rivalry can survive.

“How’d you guys end up with a farm?” Barry asks a few hours in, both of them exhausted from all the serious goat-petting and naming they've been doing.

“Panic, mostly,” Len replies with a shrug. “Mick got burned and the doc said he needed somewhere quiet and moderately temperate and accessible, and I bought the first one I saw. Which was this place.”

Barry nods. “I get that,” he says. “The black hole…Ronnie died. Eddie died. It’s ripping Iris and Caitlin apart, and it’s all my fault.”

“I planned the job that got Mick burned and didn’t pull him out in time,” Len says, nodding as well.

Mick _would_ march in there and strangle Len, because it was _not his fault_ , but at least they’re finally bonding. 

He reminds himself to do it later.

“Doesn’t sound like the black hole was your fault,” Len says, after he hears the whole story. “Take it from someone who knows what he’s talking about. Abusive father figures – it’s _always_ their fault, in the end.”

“I guess,” Barry says.

“Doesn’t help right now, does it?”

“Not really.”

“It will.”

Actual bonding. Mick is so pleased. Maybe this will make their future battles more lighthearted. Len needs more friends, anyway. 

“What do your friends say about it?”

Barry picks at his jeans. “I haven’t really been talking to them...”

“Why not?”

“I’m just not up to it.”

“Fair enough,” Mick says, deciding now is a good time to step in. “Dinner?”

“Not goat!” they chorus, each one clutching at a baby kid protectively, like Mick’s going to rip one out of their hands and take it to the cookpot. 

Mick shakes his head. 

City boys. Babies, the whole lot of them. Do they think that the farm has a majority female herd by _accident_?

“I should probably go finish construction on Jitters,” Barry says, but reluctantly. 

“Stay for the night,” Mick says, not for the first time.

For the first time, though, Barry agrees.

They end up watching a few movies.

Apparently, neither of them is quite as fond of ninja movies as Mick is, but it’s _his_ farm damnit (okay, okay, co-farm, with Len, but those are details), and if they’re going to have movie nights, they’re going to damn well start with ninjas.

Besides, it'll be good for their friendship if Len and Barry have something mutual to complain about.


	4. Legends

“So, I’ve got something new,” Len says.

“Is this related to the Zoom thing?” Mick asks without looking up.

In calculating his invasion plans, Zoom had severely underestimated the charisma of what is now indisputably the chief supervillain of Central City, Leonard Snart, leader of the Rogues.

To be more precise, Barry had asked Mick, who had asked Len, who had gathered up all the supervillains or would-be supervillains in town and they’d attacked Zoom in force.

Zoom might have been fast and he might have all sorts of snazzy tricks like throwing lightning and duplicating himself – that one had been a fun discovery – but Leonard Snart _lives_ to disappoint people.

Of course, Len had invited everyone to a barbeque afterwards, Team Flash and Rogues alike. They’d made it a masquerade so everyone could go home, identities intact and bellies full.

That was approximately when Mick learned that Len had declared Mick’s farm to be a neutral territory, respected by all, and Barry had backed that up with threats of rather-un-superhero-like super-fast violence. This mostly results in scared metas heading to Mick’s farm before they go anywhere else or try to turn their powers into a villain gimmick – though if there’s any more of them coming soon, Mick will need to bring in Ji-hyun to the farm to work as a full-time intake therapist for terrified metahumans, and she won’t like that. 

Maybe she has an intern she can recommend…

“No, it’s not related to the Zoom thing,” Len says. “I got kidnapped today.”

Mick looks up sharply.

Mick had gotten kidnapped once, from the farmer’s market – some Santini Family goons trying to make a name for themselves. The Flash had rescued him within twenty minutes and had apologized profusely for the delay: he’d had to find someone to cover their stall while he zipped off to the rescue. 

Mick approves of Barry’s priorities. 

Len is grinning, though, so he’s not thinking about that, or about his _total overreaction_ of icing every Santini joint in the entire city. 

“I’m listening,” Mick says.

“Time travel,” Len says grandly. 

Mick arches his eyebrows, unimpressed. “What’s Barry done now?”

“No, no, not time travel with Barry. _Time travel_. There’s a guy with a time ship, says he’s from the future –”

“Like Eobard?”

“ _No_ , not like Eobard! An _actual_ time traveler, no speedster involved. He’s trying to avert some terrible catastrophe or something and he’s trying to recruit some suckers to help him out.”

Mick can’t help but smile. “And you want to be one of those suckers?”

“You bet your ass I do,” Len says, grinning. “I want to rob history.”

“Bring me back the Mona Lisa,” Mick says, amused despite himself. Len and his crazy plans. “Or at least a nice copy.”

“Actually,” Len says.

“Actually?”

“I was thinking for this one, you’d come along with.”

Mick’s eyebrows arch. It’s been a long time since Len had suggested Mick join him on a job. A _long_ time. Not since _before the fire_ long time. “I’m out of the game,” he points out. “I’m _retired_.”

“Time travel,” Len replies. “Once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Mick hums. That’s true. 

“What about the goats?” he asks.

“Mab can handle them,” Len says. “She’s been on your ass to stop experimenting and let her cement the gains she’s already made for _ages_ , Mick. A vacation’ll do you some good.”

“You think I can handle it?”

Len grins. “I’ll make _sure_ of it.”

They pack up everything they think they might need – Mick’s wheelchair and cane, which Cisco has improved; his lotions, his sunscreen, his pills, medication in case of any sudden graft rejection, which remains a threat even so long later. They bring his lighters and both their guns, and Len throws the whole giant pack on his back and staggers his way to the car.

Mick drives them to the meeting place.

“Ah, excellent!” the guy in charge – Rip Hunter, Len had said his name was – rubbing his hands together. “I was hoping you would bring your partner in crime, Mr. Snart.”

Len’s eyebrows arch up. “Of course. Wouldn't go without him,” he says, but the look he sends to Mick is eloquent.

Mick nods.

He waits until they go onto the ship – he scoops up a black kid who looks like he got roofied, but Mick’s not asking – to ask one of the other people on board, a black woman with an anxious look, “Hey, I missed the first meeting. Can you get me up to date?”

He listens as the woman – Kendra, she says her name is – recounts the whole story.

“Okay,” he says.

“What?” she replies, frowning a little at him. His tone must not have been as neutral as he was hoping. 

“We’re being conned,” he explains. “I figure you should know before we take off.”

She stands up a little straighter. “How’s that?”

“Yeah, what do you mean?” the woman in white that Len had been talking to earlier asks, frowning.

“Time travel guy said you were legends in the future, right?” Mick asks.

“Yeah,” a tall guy with a stupid overly-styled haircut says. “Heroes.”

“He’s lying.”

“What makes you say that?” Kendra asks.

“He doesn’t know shit about us,” Mick says. “He called me Len’s criminal partner.”

“So?”

“I _was_ , but I’ve been retired for three, four years now.”

“Maybe he just miscalculated the time,” the woman in white offers, but he can see from the scowl on her face that she’s concerned.

“How could he’ve?” Len drawls, coming close until he's standing by Mick's side. “We haven’t even gone on the mission that supposedly makes our names famous yet.”

“What does that mean?” tall guy asks. “That he’s lying?”

“Means we’re not legends,” Mick says.

“Yeah,” Len says. “We’re patsies. I’m willing to play along for now, ‘cause I want to go time-travelling, but you all seem like –” He sneers a bit. “– heroic types who might care about that sort of thing.”

“Figured you ought to know up front,” Mick agrees.

“I don’t believe you,” tall guy says, crossing his arms. 

“I don’t know why he’d lie to us that way,” woman in white says.

Kendra is frowning, though, but what she might’ve said gets cut off by her boyfriend calling for her.

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” Mick says.

It takes getting attacked by a trio of time bounty hunters that look like Stormtroopers for Hunter to confess.

Mick and Len just share long-suffering looks as the heroes start kicking up a stink about it.

“I’m going to my room,” Mick grunts, shaking his head. “You lot figure out your moral crisis without us.”

Len follows him. “Lotion time,” he says. It’s not a suggestion.

“I didn’t over-exert myself shooting at those bounty hunters.”

“ _Yet_. The day ain’t over. I’d like to apply another layer of the sunscreen, too, while we’re at it.”

Mick grumbles and lies down.

Len is very, very thorough.

Mick ends up falling asleep about halfway through, which means he _did_ come closer to over-exerting himself than he ought to have, damnit. 

When he wakes up, he hears Len talking to someone, not far outside his room.

“- some form of improved version of it,” Len is saying. “You’re from the _future_.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Snart,” Gideon says apologetically. “Although I am capable of full regenerations, those are dependent on my access to a version of the body prior to the injury. If you were injured, for instance, I could likely return you to your current status – even if you had received an amputation.”

“Got it,” Len says. “Okay, fine. Let’s talk treatment options, then – starting with joint pain. He gets that a lot; locks up his knees pretty bad.”

“I have several alternative treatments –”

Mick shakes his head. No wonder Len was so eager to get Mick onto his trip through time; even if Gideon can’t fix him right away, Mick’s sure Len won’t rest until he’s gotten some form of future treatment for him.

Mick wouldn’t mind his joints not hurting so much. 

He’ll have to remind Len to ask about the itching, too…

He yawns. 

Later. He’ll go back to sleep and worry about Len’s devious plotting later.

He should’ve worried about it immediately.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You need someone to steal it,” Ray says.

“Okay, fine, whatever, I’ll do it,” Len drawls, plucking the picture out of Rip’s hands. He’s been dying to go do something.

“Very well,” Rip says. “You and Mr. Rory will –”

“Nah,” Len says. “I’ll take Haircut here.”

Ray – who had clearly been about to volunteer to go supervise – blinks. “Really?” he asks, sounding halfway between offended and flattered. 

“You do what I say,” Len warns him. “If you screw it up, I’m ditching you – or your dead body – in a bog.”

Ray now just looks offended. “I won’t screw it up –”

“Listen, boy scout –”

“Uh, _actually_ , I got all 129 merit badges, so technically I’m an Eagle Scout.”

Len pauses, then shakes his head in mute disbelief. 

Mick hides a smile behind a hand. Kendra seems to be in a similar state of amusement.

“Fine. Whatever,” Len says patiently. “ _Eagle_ scout. If the mission was for me to go fix your suit, would you want me to follow your lead?”

“Well, obviously –”

“Because it’s your thing, right?”

“Yes, I mean –”

“And this is _my_ thing. So follow my lead.”

“How hard can stealing be?” Ray asks, crossing his arms.

“Clearly not very, given that someone let you run a multi-million dollar corporation,” Len replies. “But before you answer that, I’d like to think about the number of people who end up in jail for theft. Come, or don’t, but remember - dead body in a bog.”

He sweeps off.

Ray rushes to follow him.

“You aren’t going to go with him?” Kendra asks Mick.

“Nah,” Mick says. “Gideon’s gonna give me some treatment for my joints. I’m retired on account of injury.” He jerks a thumb at his back.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, looking apologetic. People do that sometimes. 

“I’ve gotten used to it,” he says. “Wanna see a picture of my goats?”

“Goats…?”

He pulls a few pictures out of his wallet. “Yeah, I run a dairy farm outside of Central now…”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Kendra exclaims, her voice gone high-pitched. “They’re so _cute_!”

“What’s cute?” Sara asks, coming over.

The fearsome assassin dissolves into a girl in her early twenties within moments of seeing the photographs. 

“Look at this one,” she coos. “He’s so small! Tiny goat baby!”

“Actually, that one’s just a runt,” Mick corrects. “These are our current batch of kids.” He pulls out a photograph with Len fast asleep on the couch, crashing after a complicated heist well-planned and well-executed, four baby kids learning to climb on his back and a few more prancing around on the ground.

It's one of his favorite photos of all time. 

Both women start cooing so hard he thinks it might hurt them.

Mick’s making a good first impression. He doesn’t think he’s ever done that before.

Time to move in for the kill.

“You know, when we get back to 2017, you’re welcome to come to visit,” Mick says. “Play with some of the goats.”

“Oh my god, are you kidding? _Obviously_ yes!” Kendra enthuses. Mick notices that her boyfriend is giving him dirty looks.

“I also packed some of our cheese if you’d like to try it…”

“Sure!”

After he gives them samples of the cheese, Carter is _definitely_ glaring.

Mick doesn’t care. It’s not Mick’s fault his cheeses are more orgasmic than Carter is.

Sara heads out to go meet Stein’s younger self, which sounds like a terrible idea to Mick, but whatever.

Mick and Kendra spend the next few hours debating the pros and cons of adding sheep to Mick’s goat herd. Pro: sheep milk cheese, blended cheeses, shearing for wool means yarn and sweaters are a serious possibility, lamb for dinner. Con: need to introduce a whole new system, increase in costs, no idea how to shear sheep. 

Kendra also suggests the possibility of getting some Angora or Cashmere goats, which Mick finds very intriguing… 

Carter spends that time being very annoyed, since he apparently wanted to use the time to try to get the picture of the dagger to help ‘reawaken’ Kendra’s memories.

Perhaps unsurprisingly to everyone but Carter, Kendra prefers the sheep discussion.

Their radio crackles to life. 

“Hey, Mick,” Len’s voice is pleasant.

Too pleasant. 

Mick sits up straight. “Lenny’s in trouble,” he says.

“What makes you say –” she starts.

“Haircut triggered the alarm,” Len continues, voice just as pleasant as before, which means he’s seriously contemplating killing the guy. “We are now in a cage. We’ll probably need someone to come get the fuse box – especially since the owner’s probably on his way.”

Mick shakes his head. “I’ll go,” he says. “You Rosetta Stone it up with hawk-boy, Kendra.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she sighs.

“Listen,” Mick says. “Just because you fell for him in the past doesn’t give him a shortcut, okay? You’re a different person. Getting back together with your ex after 200 times might seem nice and all, but it doesn’t mean it is.”

“I think I had a relationship like that in high school,” Kendra grumbles, but she goes.

Mick goes and finds the fuse box.

He also finds Savage.

He gets dragged down to the first floor and used to force Len to lure in Carter and Kendra. 

He _hates_ that.

Not quite as much as Len hates watching it, though. He promises to kill Savage, and he means it, too.

They do get the dagger, though.

“Go kill that son of a bitch,” Len says, offering Kendra the dagger.

“I’ll go,” Carter interrupts, grabbing the dagger before she can take it.

“Shouldn’t Kendra do it?” Mick asks.

“There is no need for her to bear that burden,” Carter says.

“I feel like that’s the attitude that got you guys killed 200 times,” Len says. “But have it your way.”

Carter goes, Kendra close behind.

Rip is shouting orders, guards are everywhere, and Mick looks at Len.

Len looks at Mick.

“Maybe we should go help them,” Mick says. “Their track record ain’t great.”

“Good point,” Len says.

They get there just in time to find Savage stabbing Carter, laughing about how only Kendra can do the deed with the dagger because of course it wouldn't be that easy.

Something ephemeral starts to come out of Carter’s mouth.

“Right then,” Len says, and ices the back of Savage’s head, forcing him to drop Carter and back off.

Mick charges forward to grab Kendra even as she throws herself at Savage – and at the dagger. 

“Jax!” he roars. “Need a pick-up!”

“Carter!” Kendra screams.

“You can’t kill me,” Savage laughs in Len’s face. He still has the dagger. “I will finish off Prince Khufu and then Chay-ara –”

“At the moment,” Len says, “I’ll settle for slowing you down.” 

He ices Savage, feet to head, and uses his gun to smash the ice. 

The dagger falls from Savage’s frozen hand to Len’s feet.

“I’ll get Carter,” Mick tells Kendra as he hands her over to Jax. “He’s not dead yet.”

“His last words – I need to hear him – to tell him –”

“Jesus, stop being such a goth!” Mick exclaims. “Let’s try to _save_ him, first!”

“Mick!” Len shouts. He’s crouched over Carter’s body.

Mick turns and runs over. His shoulders and back – the burns – are itching; his neck is damp with sweat as his body tries to deal with all the exertion. His joints all ache and he’s limping badly. He’s gasping for air. 

He’s barely been out in the field for an hour. 

Fucking burns.

“I need your gun,” Len says.

“What?”

“He’s bleeding like a stuck pig,” Len says. “We need to burn him.”

Mick hesitates.

“Bleeders die within hours, Mick,” Len says. “Burn victims…”

“Mostly die two to three weeks after,” Mick says, understanding. “And we’ve got future tech, which gives us better than average odds.”

“Sorry, Carter,” Len says. “It’s for your own good.”

Carter screams bloody murder, but he survives the trip back to the ship.

Rip meets them at the door, face pale. “What did you do?” he demands.

“Mick,” Len says.

Mick lets go of Carter, steps forward, and punches Rip in the face. 

Feels good, being the muscle again.

Then his shoulders cramp. 

Oh, right. Fuck exercise. Fuck it with a goddamn pole. 

“Mr. Rory!” Rip splutters.

“Hey, computer,” Mick snaps. “Get us somewhere safe.”

“Taking us to the temporal zone now, Mr. Rory –”

“Not there. Somewhere we can park where no one’ll follow. Top of a mountain or something.”

“Will do, Mr. Rory.”

“Gideon!” Rip yelps.

“It makes sense,” Mick tells him. “We need to care for our wounded.”

“Is Mr. Carter…?”

“Dunno, but there’s a chance of him living, which is better than not,” Mick says. “You can keep your useless yammering for later.”

Rip looks insulted, but Mick honestly doesn’t care.

They go to the medical bay, where Gideon is already patching Carter up. 

“His vitals are unusually low,” she is telling Len, who’s nodding. 

“Probably Savage sucking the life out of him,” he says. “But he’s not dead, at least.”

“Indeed. Your timely intervention appears to in fact have saved his life.”

Kendra is there.

Mick goes to her, nudges her. “Still doesn’t have to be your boyfriend,” he reminds her.

She smiles, eyes watery. “I don’t want to lose him,” she confesses. “But I don’t know – I was so sure, when he was dying, that I truly loved him. But now I’m worried it was more about not wanting to give up the possibility of soulmates. You know?”

“You can take your time in deciding,” Mick tells her.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mick waits until the Legends are out for their next mission – a bank heist, apparently, or something like that; Len had looked seriously pained by their lack of planning – before going to the medical bay to sit by a still-recovering Carter.

Gideon is apparently well-equipped for many things, but burns are still serious business. 

“You know you nearly got you and your ladyfriend killed,” Mick tells him pleasantly. “Right?”

“Is this a lecture?” Carter asks, groaning. “Or a request for a thank you?”

“It’s a ‘don’t be such a presumptive prick, and also if you don’t stop harassing the lady I’m going to knock your teeth out’ sort of talk,” Mick says.

“I’m not _harassing_ her –”

“Man who goes after a woman and doesn’t listen when she says no? How do you call it, then? Being _romantic_? I don’t care what era you’re from, that shit don’t fly nowadays.”

Carter scowls. “We fell in love two hundred and seven times –”

“Which means she thinks you’re hot, which gives you an advantage,” Mick says patiently. “But if you want her _not_ to fall in love with you in this lifetime, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“You don’t know –”

“You’re relying on her memories of you being charming in a past life to get her into your bed,” Mick says. “That’s bullshit. Maybe past life you was raised by someone who actually taught him respect for women; maybe you grew up with a bunch of assholes. Doesn’t change the fact that Kendra is who she is now _as well_ as who she used to be, and you’re who you are now.”

Carter crosses his arms. “I don’t need your advice,” he says stiffly.

Mick shrugs. You can bring a horse to water… “Okay,” he says. “Just putting in my two cents.”

“It’s not appreciated.”

“Also, wanted to tell you that if you keep acting like this, I’m gonna kill you.”

Carter snorts, but his amusement fades when Mick keeps looking at him steadily. “…you mean that.”

“Sure thing,” Mick says, as pleasantly as he can manage. He's not quite at Len's murder-with-a-smile level of intimidation, but he's not half bad at it. “Most burn victims die two, three weeks later, which means you’re gonna be sitting on the bench with me for the foreseeable future, even _with_ Gideon’s tech.”

“You wouldn’t kill me,” Carter says, but it’s weak. “We’re on the same team – you need Kendra and I to defeat Savage!”

Mick raises his eyebrows. “You reincarnate,” he points out. “We’ll go to the future, pick up your next life. Maybe that version of you’ll have better manners.”

Carter looks dumbfounded.

“Good thing about your reincarnation business,” Mick says cheerfully, hoisting himself up out of the chair. “It means that Prince Khufu’ll still be around – but you, _Carter Hall_ you, is more or less exchangeable. Ain't that right? Just like you keep telling Kendra that the only part of her you care about is Chay-ara. Think on that.”

He leaves, but it looks like Carter _does_ think on it, because he suddenly gets much better about calling Kendra ‘Kendra’ instead of ‘Chay-ara’ and asking to learn info about her life instead of just assuming he already knows everything of importance. 

They also seem to be engaging in more couple bonding activities, like watching Ray Palmer fix his suit, a process that requires him to wear very little clothing and become increasingly covered in grease.

Both Carter and Kendra seem to enjoy that fact immensely.

“The hawks that prey together, stay together?” Len murmurs into Mick’s ear.

Mick snorts. “Should we warn Haircut?”

“I wouldn’t warn Haircut if I saw him playing with a loaded gun that has its safety off.”

“You’re gonna need to forgive him eventually,” Mick points out. “He wasn’t the one that held a gun on me and threw me to the ground a few times; that was Savage.”

“If it wasn’t for Haircut’s sticky fingers, I would’ve been in and out with the dagger,” Len says, unmoved. “And you wouldn’t have even come into the house at all. Savage would’ve never even seen you.”

“At least we still _have_ the dagger,” Mick says. He’s not getting to go anywhere until Len stops being quite so panicked about Mick being in danger. 

He makes a point of insisting on going on the next mission just to make a point.

It occurs to Mick, when he’s thrown into the Russian gulag, that Len isn’t going to allow him off the Waverider _ever again_.

“What’re the odds Len burns the whole place down trying to get to me?” Mick asks Ray.

Ray – who’d been dealing with an increasingly bitchy Snart, which isn’t good for anyone’s health – grins a little. “I’m going to go with ‘pretty good’. Think he’ll commandeer the Waverider?”

Mick opens his mouth to answer, only for a gigantic blast to go off on the other side of the prison. 

“Make that ‘definitely’,” Ray amends.

The rescue is short but sweet.

Len is about three seconds away from a panic attack. Sara and Kendra are taking turns calming him down. 

“I got it, girls,” Mick tells them. “Len, I’m _fine_ , Jesus.”

“You’re supposed to be _retired_ ,” Len growls. “Retired and _safe_. You’re not supposed to be _running into armed guards_.”

“See what I deal with?” Mick complains theatrically, causing both girls – who had been grinning fatuously at the two of them – to start snickering. “I’m amazed you got Rip to sign on to this, though. Not too many timeline changes?”

“We bonked him over the head, tied him up and gagged him,” Sara says cheerfully. “It was that or Len would’ve killed him.”

“You’re such a _drama queen_ ,” Mick tells Len, who crosses his arms, utterly unrepentant.

Rip is _immensely_ not pleased by their solution, but Gideon reports no serious timeline damage has been done. Coincidentally, the blasts also erased all evidence of the Firestorm research Valentina had been doing and killed her. The Soviet authorities assumed that the blast was related to her research and covered it up very efficiently. 

The Waverider ends up being attacked on its way out of Russia by the Stormtroopers Three, causing them crash-land in the future. A future filled with violence and lawlessness and unguarded banks. 

“I’m going to go stretch my legs,” Len says casually, convincing literally no one of his innocence.

“Want help?” Mick asks.

“You will _stay in the Waverider_ , Mick, or so help me…”

Mick sniggers and goes to play sudoku with Carter, who’s developed a minor infection-related fever and also a much worse case of cabin fever. It isn’t easy to be benched, but Mick’s got a lot of practice. 

Sara obtains the ship piece they need to get out of this place and starts a revolution in her spare time, but apparently _that’s_ okay.

Rip’s next big plan involves pirates. 

“Send Jax and Stein together,” Len suggests. “That way, anything goes wrong, they Firestorm their way out.”

The second Rip and Firestorm are out the door, the rest of them start betting on how quickly it’ll all go wrong. 

They all underestimate it badly, because the hull gets breached and Len and Sara do their best impression of people wanting to freeze to death.

Mick burns a hole into the steel-plated door with his gun set on max heat and hands the gun through to Len so Len can melt some metal over where the hull has been breached.

“You’re going to pay for this,” he tells his partner. “All that worrying you do about me, and then you nearly ice cube yourself?”

“Ray’s getting the outside, right?” Len says, ignoring Mick’s perfectly reasonable query.

“He’s going there now,” Kendra says, hovering by Mick’s side. “You melting the inside will seal the breach on the inside so that you don't freeze or run out of air; it'll also make it easier for him to seal it from the outside.”

Ray _still_ nearly manages to kill himself thanks to his not-designed-for-space suit, but given the way that Kendra and Carter fuss over him after, Mick suspects he doesn’t mind.

Then they go rescue Rip, who is not particularly gracious about getting knocked over the head _again_ in order to keep him from screwing up his own rescue.

“If you weren’t constantly leading us into traps or making plans that didn’t work, we’d respect you more,” Mick points out.

“You’re hardly one to talk,” Rip says stiffly and angrily. “You’re only here because Mr. Snart wouldn’t go without you; my plans to save the world hardly involved recruiting an insane arsonist with the IQ of _meat_.”

Mick’s not even insulted – he knows he wasn’t invited, not really, and he's heard the rest of that many times before – but Sara darting forward to slap Rip across the face is surprisingly satisfying.

“Mick Rory,” she says sternly, “is a far finer, far more _useful_ man than you ever were, Rip Hunter.”

“And you should damn well remember that,” Kendra adds, glaring.

The glaring works really well with the hawk-eyes, Mick’s just saying.

“I’m honored to call Rory a companion,” Carter adds. “He saved my life and has demonstrated himself to be both intelligent, compassionate and cunning. I have yet to see any reason to say the same about you.”

“I didn’t mean –”

Len appears at the doorway. He’s got a nice, pleasant smile on.

“Oh, you’re in for it now,” Ray says. He knows that smile far too well.

“Heard you were talking shit about my partner. That true, Rip?”

Rip looks around at them. 

Mick crosses his arms and smirks.

“Mr. Rory,” he says, _very_ stiffly. “It appears I owe you an apology.”

“Damn right you do,” Mick says.

Okay, fine. 

Maybe he does like this team.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“So Jax got turned into a hawk,” Len says, rubbing at his face. “We nearly ditched Ray, Kendra, Sara, and Carter for two years due to a technical failure of all things.”

“We’re all _very_ grateful you convinced Rip to come back to three months later instead,” Kendra says from where she’s happily perched on Ray’s lap.

Apparently, she, Carter, and Ray handled those three months very productively, pretending to be two sets of couples to cover for Sara’s parade of lovers of both sexes and their own ménage a trois. 

“That’s not the _point_ ,” Len says. “How are we fucking this up so bad?”

“It’s pretty impressive,” Mick agrees.

“If the next mission fucks up, I’m assuming sabotage,” Len decides. 

Of course, in the next mission, Rip decides child-murder is the right way to proceed and promptly gets knocked out again.

“Eventually he’s going to get a concussion or something,” Mick observes.

“Please,” Sara – who had done the knocking-out – says. “I’m an _assassin_. I was gentle.”

“Why in the world would we go after a kid instead of after Savage directly?” Len asks, utterly bemused. “Just because we couldn’t get him in Russia and the plan to get Kendra close enough to stab him in 1958 didn’t work because he got tipped off somehow…”

“Attempt at Savage, take three,” Kendra sighs. Carter pats her shoulder.

Take three is a failure.

Again. 

“You must stop knocking me out!” Rip shouts.

“I don’t know why we keep failing,” Kendra says, bewildered. “I was _so close_ when the robots attacked!”

“It does seem like we’re being set up,” Len observes. His arms are crossed and his eyes are narrow.

“But by who?” Carter asks.

“And _how_?” Mick adds.

“You’re all being ridiculous,” Rip says. "No one is _setting us up_. I told you at the beginning; time is just very difficult to change."

"All these aberrations we keep having to fix don't make it seem that way," Len grumbles.

They go back to the Wild West next.

“I’m going out and you can’t stop me,” Mick tells Len.

“I would never miss the sight of you in cowboy gear,” Len says mildly. “I’m bringing a camera. And getting photographs. _Many_ photographs. Would you like a bandana?”

“You know what, I think I will,” Mick says. 

“You are both ridiculous,” Sara says.

“I’m naming a goat after you,” Mick tells her. “When I get home. I can’t decide – ‘Blondie’ or ‘Canary-brain’.”

“I’m gonna drink you under the table,” Sara says.

“I’m _retired_.”

“Means you have more time to drink.”

“Not on his medications, he ain’t,” Len says. “Let’s go gamble instead.”

About ten minutes in, people are laughing.

About half an hour in, they’re not.

An hour in, they’ve accumulated a crowd. 

Len, Mick, Sara, and – surprisingly – Stein are all playing with grins so wide their teeth are bared. 

“I miss playing high stakes,” Stein says, selecting a card. 

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a Central City rules kinda guy,” Len drawls.

“My father was a card-counter,” Stein says. “I learned at his knee – and I was quite good at it.”

They put their cards down.

“Not good enough,” Mick says, and sweeps the pot towards himself.

“Another round,” one of their audience calls.

“Don’t see why not,” Len says.

Ray takes advantage of their distraction to pick a fight with the local gang.

Kendra and Carter go to visit a past version of Kendra, and round up back to rescue Jax from an ill-fated venture. 

“We could have shot them out at high noon in order to get Mr. Jackson back,” Rip grumbles.

“Stop letting your drama get in the way of our mission,” Ray says nobly. 

Mick would believe in Ray’s newfound practical turn a lot more if Kendra and Carter’s arms weren’t wrapped around his waist.

“I thought you wanted to save the town, Dr. Palmer - or should I say, Sheriff John Wayne?”

“And we will be saving the town,” Kendra says. “But not at the expense of Jax.” She grins. “We’ve challenged what's-his-name to a duel on your behalf for control of the town, and nothing else. Have fun.”

Rip wins, of course, not being _totally_ useless, but the time it takes to happen is enough for the Stormtroopers to catch up with them.

They’re called Hunters, apparently; the Time Masters deploy them.

And before they die, they mention another hunter coming after them, one called the Pilgrim.

“This is increasingly ridiculous,” Len says. “Hunters? Pilgrims? What’s next, Cops and Robbers? The Terminator? _Dragons_?”

“This is _serious_ , Mr. Snart! We need to go to periods of temporal dislocation – places where we could have been killed –”

Len’s eyes glint. “Let’s go,” he says.

They rescue Jax’s childhood self first – a near drowning, age five.

Sara’s next, a shoot-out at her dad’s office when she was eighteen.

Ray after that; only a few years prior, an experiment that exploded but only shrunk him rather than kill him.

Next is –

“I know where we go next,” Len says.

“Where?” Rip snaps. “There are no more temporal distortions for us to track the Pilgrim’s progress – if we’re mistaken, we will lose a crew member!”

“What, like your idea is so much better?” Kendra snaps. “Removing babies and risking deletion from the timeline due to our own actions? We’re taking enough risk with the ones we’ve already removed!” 

“Mr. Snart, how could you _possibly_ know when the point most likely for one of us to be removed from the timeline –” Stein starts.

“Shreveport,” Len says. “We’re going to Shreveport.”

Mick freezes.

“A few years back. Gideon knows the date. Gideon, confirm,” Len adds.

“A scan of Mr. Rory’s timeline states that that is the most likely period for him to be omitted without effect,” Gideon confirms.

“We don’t know if he’s the next one on the list.”

“He is,” Len says.

“Why?”

“Because they’re going in _alphabetical order_ , dumbass,” Jax says. “Last name, like in grade school.”

Len’s not looking at Mick. His eyes are fixed on Gideon’s holographic face. 

“Len,” Mick says.

“Set course, Gideon,” Len says. His voice is pleasant and set in stone; Ray’s back straightens just at the sound of it. 

Mick knows the tone well; the others have learned it too, over the last few months.

Leonard Snart does not intend to be deterred.

Mick should’ve known.

Mick _should’ve known_.

“Len,” he hisses. “Can we talk?”

“Setting course, Mr. Snart,” Gideon confirms.

“Sure, Mick,” Len says, and Mick draws him back to the wall. The others pull away, Sara grabbing Rip by the arm and _hauling_ him when he doesn’t move fast enough. It’s not real privacy, not by a long shot, but it’s something.

Mick turns Len to look him in the eye, hoping to see something, some hesitation, some doubt, _something_ he can use to break through the ice that Len uses a shield, but there’s nothing.

Len’s as calm and quiet as a sea without wind. 

“You can’t stop the fire,” Mick tells him. “You _can’t_ , Len.”

Len arches his eyebrows.

“Damnit, Len! This is why you brought me on this trip, isn’t it? For _this_.”

“I brought you because you’re my partner,” Len says. “Variable timeline – I would never risk anything happening to your timeline without you by my side, not for nothing _but_ this. You think I would go on a quest with a man clearly deranged with grief for anything less?”

Mick sucks a breath in, then exhales. “Len –”

“You can’t tell me you don’t want it,” Len snarls, suddenly violent with emotion, all of it rising the surface, painting his cheeks red; the ice cracking all at once in a sudden wave of sheer rage. “You hate being out of the game. You _hate_ being left behind. Every goddamn time I go out, you ask me if I want you; every _goddamn_ time I say no when all I want to say is yes. You’re my _partner_ , Mick, and I led you to the flame and I _left_ you to it. Nothing can erase my mistakes, I’ve always known that – or did, until Rip showed up and offered me a way to the past.”

“I never asked this of you,” Mick says. His lips are numb. He should’ve known. Leonard Snart, the planner, the one who sees the big picture. The one who needs only a glimpse of a part to see the whole; the one who can see opportunities in the direst of circumstances. “I never – I don’t hate it, Len. I don’t.”

“Oh, sure,” Len says, and his voice is still savage. “You love your farm, you love the goats. I know you do. You’ve made the best of the life that I left you. But I could _stop_ it, Mick. I could stop all of it. We could be together, just like we were before; you my right hand, my muscle, the one who has my back when no one else does. A few adjustments at the right time…”

Mick reaches up, cups the back of Leonard’s head with his palm. It’s not a gesture he does often. It’s too intimate, too private, too much emotion for men like them to ever comfortably admit to. He does it rarely, and almost never outside their home.

The farm, he means.

It cuts Len off, silences him utterly, and Mick leans forward, touching their foreheads lightly together for just a brief second, before pulling away.

Len’s eyes are wide and dark and gutted.

“Len,” Mick says, and his voice is gentle. “No.”

“But why _not_?” Len whispers. “I’m not going to try to prevent the fire entirely – just avert it a little, call the ambulances a little earlier. I’ve done the math, Mick – fourth degree burns would be third; third would be second. You’d have the scars, yes, but the muscle damage wouldn’t be there. The lung damage; that was late. If they got there sooner, the smoke wouldn’t have gotten as bad, the monoxide wouldn’t have built up so much in your lungs. You would’ve woken up in the ambulance and you would’ve had _options_. No more limp, Mick; think of it! No more medicines for your skin grafts, for your blood pressure, for the pneumonia, _nothing_.”

“No more you, Len,” Mick says, because it’s all clear now. It’s all so painfully clear. 

Len stares at him, not understanding.

“You were out, Len,” Mick reminds him, though it pains him to do so; he can see the ice cracking into jagged shards that hurt Len so much more than anyone else. “You told me so yourself. If it wasn’t so bad as it was, you would’ve left me.”

“I would’ve come back,” Len whispers. He doesn’t deny it; he’s never denied it. Leonard Snart is in or he is out, and there is no in between. “I would’ve come back, Mick. I _always_ come back to you.”

“I know,” Mick says. “I know. But Len – I have so much _more_ of you now. More than I’d ever had before. You come home with me every night; you wake up with me every morning; you even check with me about your plans. I know it’s because you’ve lost confidence in yourself, which I hate; I would do anything to reverse that and give you back yourself – anything but _this_ , Len. We had safe-houses, before, a dozen or more; now –” He swallows. “Now we have a home.”

“Mick,” Len whispers.

“I do hate being left behind,” Mick says, and his voice is gruff. “You’re right about that. But I hate it because I want to be at your side, always; not because of what happened to me. I’ve made myself a new life, now, and it’s not a bad one, Len. It’s a _good_ one. I have you, I have the farm, I have the goddamn goats. If you change this, you risk changing everything else.”

He runs his palm over Len’s scalp, brushing his fingers lightly through Len’s close-clipped hair. His throat hurts, tight with emotion; he doesn’t make speeches like this for a good reason. 

“I won’t give up what I have, not for an uncertain future. Not to be alone for months, maybe years. To have you, I’ll take all of it – the temperature adjustments, the medicines, the limp, the coughing, _everything_. Don’t do it, Len.”

“Mick…”

“Please.”

Len closes his eyes in defeat.

Mick inclines his head. He knows what this means to Len; he knows what Len is giving up – the hope that Rip Hunter sparked in him, his dearest hope, above riches and gold and even adventure: to see those he loved safe and well and never harmed. 

Len would destroy himself to save his sister; Mick learned that when Len tried to save his father from a prison fate he much deserved, a little jaunt that Mick didn’t learn about until after it had been tried and failed. 

He should have known that Len would do no less for him.

“Len,” Mick says. It’s an acknowledgement of what Len’s given up for him.

It’s a plea for forgiveness.

“We go to Shreveport to stop the Pilgrim,” Len says. “And nothing more.”

Mick nods.

“Thank you,” he says.

“For you,” Len says, and smiles, though his smile is shadowed again with pain that Mick hadn’t even realized had been lifted until he sees it return. “Anything.”

“We’re arriving,” Sara says from the door. Her eyes are fixed on the door, as if she could see nothing else.

Mick takes a step back.

“I’ll get her for you,” Len promises.

They go.

Mick stays, and breathes in hard, what he would almost call a sob except for the fact that he doesn’t cry like that. He hadn’t – he wasn’t –

Len was right.

He _does_ hate it, sometimes. More than sometimes. His new limitations make everything so much harder than it has to be. He can’t sit in a shadowed booth in the farmer’s market all day without a bucket of water and an equally large bucket of sunscreen, regularly applied, much less actually go on heists or exert himself. He still needs a _wheelchair_ , some days.

If you’d asked him yesterday what he’d trade to be hearty and whole again, he’d have said anything.

Turns out, when the moment of truth came, there were some things he wouldn't trade, after all. 

Mick lets go of that hope he hadn’t realized _he_ was still carrying, all these years later, that one day he would wake up and everything would be better.

But he believes what he told Len, he believes in it, every cell of his body.

His life _is_ better now. 

The farm, and the goats, and the speedsters, and Len. 

Len, returning to his side, _by_ his side, in all the ways that matter. 

Yes, Mick Rory would take this life over any other.

And he’s not going to let any goddamn Pilgrim stop him.

An idea hits him square between the eyes. 

Mick smiles.

The Pilgrim has a device that slows down time – micro-manipulation, Rip called it – and it lets her slow an attack long enough to escape it; the Legends had planned to attack her all at once, hoping to catch her in a weak moment.

She freezes them all and laughs.

Mick, floating in the Waverider right above her head, fires down with all of the Waverider’s many guns, all at once.

The Pilgrim laughs no more. 

There’s a small crater, now, where she once was; Mick has no doubt it will be attributed to the fire that even now burns bright in the building next door. 

“Well _done_ , Mr. Rory!” Rip enthuses when he re-enters the ship. 

Sara fist-bumps him. Kendra hugs him.

Mick has to glare at Ray and Carter before they try for a hug, too.

He doesn’t do anything when Jax nearly tackles him, though, whooping with pleasure.

He’s a kid. Mick can be magnanimous. 

“Where to now?” Kendra asks. “After we return the kids.”

“We have no choice,” Rip says. “We will confront Savage in 2166 at the height of his power.”

“We’re going to finish it,” Carter says. “Once and for all.”

Mick looks at Len. Len looks back. 

He nods, confirming.

No changes were made.

Mick hopes Len forgives him.

They go to the future. 

They find Savage at the head of his armies. They find his daughter, too, wearing one of Kendra’s old bracelets; Len is able to lift it easily enough, and convert the girl with tales of woe and bad parenting. 

Ray fights a giant.

Kendra attacks Savage, the dagger gripped in her palm, only to find that he imprisoned a future version of Carter as his slave. 

“I can’t,” she says helplessly. “We have to – we have to save him. Future Carter. We have to free him. This is _our future_ ; we will live it, if we don’t stop it.”

Savage goes into the cells.

“This is a bad idea,” Len says.

“No kidding,” Jax says, sighing.

“I agree,” Carter says. He rubs his face. “What do we do?”

He’s asking Mick.

Mick blinks. “Len’s the planner,” he points out.

“But you make the final call,” Carter points out. “You’re the willpower; he’s _your_ brain. Tell him to think, and he will.”

Mick has always thought of himself as Len’s muscle; he’d never thought of Len as _his_ brain. 

He likes the sound of that.

“Len,” Mick says. 

Len turns to him, and his eyes are warm as ever, without even the slightest trace of rancor. 

Mick smiles, and he means it. 

“Make us a plan.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Len’s mind works on many, many crooked paths. There is no paranoia he will not seriously consider as a possibility; no scheme or conspiracy too absurd to be taken into account, at least momentarily. 

Savage’s attempts to escape aboard the ship fail; his manipulations are useless when every man and woman aboard the ship is required to call in to Mick every five minutes for an update on the crossword puzzle they’re all working on jointly. It distracts them, makes them think; makes them too busy for a slippery-tongued snake to drip poison into their ears.

(Ray even asks Savage if he knows a six-letter word for something fragrant. Savage isn't amused.)

Savage does break loose at one point in order to attempt to attack Kendra, though; Len permits it, and positions the future Carter to watch.

The brainwashing snaps and he rushes to the rescue, knocking out Savage with the Carter from their original era only moments behind him.

The two of them look at each other.

“Well,” the future version says wryly. “This is awkward.”

“No kidding,” Carter says. 

“Say,” Sara says, “can future you remember this from the opposite point of view?”

“Yes,” future Carter says, making a face. “Let’s not talk about it too much.”

“You’re our ace in the hole,” Len tells him. He jerks a thumb back. “Savage doesn’t realize we have two of you. Shoo.”

Plans A through C assumed the Time Masters were legitimate.

Plan D, however, assumed treachery.

“Plan D it is,” Mick murmurs as the guards drag him away.

Kendra hears him, and smiles. 

They confiscate her dagger, which hangs at her belt.

They do not confiscate the two smaller knives, hidden beneath her breasts, which they coated with the gold of the bracelet they found. 

They don’t find Len, Sara, or the new Carter, either.

Rip is taken away; Rip is brought back. 

He tells them about the Time Masters’ secret weapon, that they called the Oculus, which they used to manipulate the timeline.

“That’s why we lost so often,” Mick says, nodding. “Circumstances were _actually_ conspiring against us.”

“And there’s nothing we can do about it,” Rip concludes.

“We can destroy it,” Ray says. “We _have_ to.”

Savage takes Carter and Kendra away. 

Len and Sara slips through the door moments later.

Rip tells them about the Oculus.

“Len,” Mick says.

“I’ve got a plan.”

Mick likes it when Len has a plan.

They fight their way to the Oculus and Ray starts working furiously, the future version of Carter standing guard alongside Sara and Len and Mick.

“Guys,” Ray pants. “There’s a failsafe – someone needs to be here when it blows.”

“Let me,” the future Carter says. His smile is crooked. “We do this? Kendra and I – my past self – we can go forward in time without concern of Savage. And that makes me a timeline fragment, soon to be wiped away by the timeline.”

“Are you sure?” Ray asks.

“That’s the plan,” Len says.

“It was always the plan,” Sara says gently. “That’s why Kendra and Carter are holding off on killing Savage, to buy us time.”

“How will they know the time is right?”

“Oh,” Carter says, “they’ll know.”

They leave him there and retreat to the Waverider.

The explosion behind them throws them head over tail, the Waverider very nearly spinning out of control before catching itself in the time stream.

“We did it,” Rip says, eyes wide with shock. “What do we do now, then?”

“Your family,” Sara says.

“What?”

“Your _family_. Kendra and Carter – Savage is going after your family, and Kendra and Carter are going to kill him before he can manage.”

“Yes – _yes_ –”

“Won’t that cause _us_ to become timeline fragments?” Ray asks, gnawing at his lip and twisting his fingers together. No wonder; his lovers are in danger. 

“No, we have a window of opportunity,” Rip says. “I’ll retain my memories of the prior timeline – we all will, as time travelers – but there won’t be any other effect.”

“The Oculus’ destruction is still sending shockwaves through the timeline,” Gideon says. “If you wish to make a seriously change to the timeline, now is the most optimal time for it.”

“Rip,” Mick says gruffly.

Rip looks at him. His eyes are wet with unshed tears – he is so close to his goal, he can taste it, and the hope of it is ripping him apart. 

“I’m gonna guess you know the coordinates,” Mick says.

Rip nods jerkily and enters them.

They arrive just in time to stagger back at another explosion of light, this time gold instead of blue.

“What..?” Rip asks.

“Carter!” Ray shouts, running forward. “Kendra!”

“Ray!” Kendra cries out, smile wide, and embraces him.

The body of Vandal Savage lies at their feet; a shell-shocked woman and child behind them.

They stabbed him together, Mick notes. How romantic.

“Miranda!” Rip shouts, and he’s running forward as well. “Jonas!”

“Can we go inside and skip the teary reunions?” Len mutters in Mick’s ear.

“ _Please_ ,” Mick says fervently. 

When all is said and done, Rip yields up the captaincy of the Waverider, naming Sara as his surprised successor. 

“But – but –”

“You’re the best one for the job,” he tells her. “You will be fair and good, and you will take excellent care of the timeline.”

“But Len – Mick –”

“We’re going _home_ ,” Mick says. “Sorry. Come by anytime; we have cheese. And goats.”

“Not to be underestimated, the goats,” Len says, nodding. 

“We’ll stand with you,” Jax says, patting Sara on the arm. “Don’t worry. We’ve got your back.”

“He’s right,” Carter says, one arm around Kendra and the other around Ray. “We’ll be with you every step of the way. We’ll protect the timeline from those who mean to damage or change it.”

“Ah,” Rip says. “There is _one_ incident that you may want to consider changing…”

A few moments later, Sara exclaims, “ _What_ about my sister?! And when exactly were you going to _tell me_ about this?!”

“I’m telling you now!” Rip yelps, holding up his hands in surrender.

“Why I oughta…”

“Mr. Hunter,” Stein interrupts. “I assume by giving up the captaincy, you do not intend to stay?”

“I’ll stay for six months,” Rip says, nodding. “To teach you everything you need to know: about the ship, about the timeline. Miranda,” he takes her hand, “will help; she’s the finest Time Master trainee the academy has ever known, before she gave up her career for mine.”

Miranda smiles. “And don’t you forget it.”

“After that,” Rip says, “we would like to be dropped off in the past, to make a home for ourselves there.”

Len groans.

Everyone looks at him.

“You want to go back to the Wild West,” Len guesses. “And _Jonah Hex_. Jonah, Jonas – I think I’m seeing a theme.”

Rip goes red.

Miranda smirks. “I’m looking forward to meeting him at last,” she says. “I’ve heard so _very_ much about him.”

Mick is the first to start laughing.

The rest of the team joins in quickly enough.

“We’ll have the Hunters’ ship, which they left behind back then,” Rip says to Sara, trying desperately to keep a straight face amid all the sniggering. “I’ll give you the address code; you’ll be able to call us any time.”

“Good to know, Rip,” she says, wiping her eyes and patting his hand. “Good to know.”

“Enough of this,” Len says, “Gideon – set course for 2016. Take us _home_.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Haircut!” Mick roars. “Get off the goddamn table!”

Ray jumps a little. “But,” he says, blinking, “I’m not _on_ the table…?”

“Not you,” Len says. He nods at the yearling goat that’s climbing its determined way up one of the picnic tables, its eyes fixed on a bowl of salad that looks like the one Kendra brought. The goat has a giant dark tuft of hair on its head, right between the two horns, long and wavy, almost like it’s been styled; it’s quite absurd looking. “That Haircut.”

Ray looks ridiculously pleased. “You named one after me!”

“He likes to run into walls for no reason,” Mick says dryly. “Seemed like it fit.”

“Do I have one?” Sara asks, hard at work setting up the grill. She got Mick a brand new lighter from 2140 as a present; she promises him it’s worth every second.

“Sure,” Mick says. “Blondie.” He points out an all-white goat – not a true albino, just pale – that’s currently skipping through the crowd, sniffing everyone new. 

“Cute,” Laurel says, and crouches down to offer that one a handful of corn from the bags Mick handed out to everyone when they arrived. “Very cute. Heeeere, Blondie. Come to Auntie Laurel. I’m gonna tie dumb ribbons in your hair, yes I am.”

“Better Blondie than me,” Sara says. “She used to, I swear.”

“Big sister privileges,” Laurel says primly, but she’s grinning. “I brought a camera. I want a picture of you and your goat – matching ribbons, of course.”

Sara groans theatrically.

“What about us?” Carter asks, amused. “Hawk one and two?”

Mick jerks his thumb at the male and female goat sitting calmly on the porch, nuzzling each other. They’re yearlings; they should be jumping around like apes, but they had old souls from the start. “Tobias and Marahute.”

“Marahute’s an _eagle_ , Mick,” Kendra says, though he can tell from the pleased smile on her face that she’s not upset at all. Quite the contrary.

“Grey and Lighter are stuffing their faces in the yard,” Mick says to the two members of Firestorm before they even ask. 

“Did I get one?” Rip asks, looking around warily for the murder twins, as Len insists on continuing to call the geese. They’d bitten Rip three times already; he couldn’t seem to stop annoying them even after they’d warily permitted the remaining guests onto the property. 

“Nope,” Mick says cheerfully. “I did name one Gideon, though; you can claim half ownership of that one.”

“I’ll take it,” he says, and flees when he sees Spite waddling purposefully towards him. 

(Mick will eventually tell him about Time Dad, the yard's grumpiest old matron goat. But not yet.)

He hears Len behind him, a breath of intentional warning – Len considerate as always – before Len nudges Mick’s hip with his own and leans his head against Mick’s shoulder, an arm slithering around Mick's waist to rest lightly on his side. “Can we kick ‘em out now?” he whines playfully. “There’s too many of ‘em. I hate people.”

Mick snorts. “It’s the Fourth of July,” he says. “You can be social for a bit longer. Go play with the Flash.”

“He’s with Zipper,” Len says dismissively. “Cisco and Caitlin just found Smarts and Chills, by the way; they’re too busy cooing to be insulted. Getting Cashmere goats was a stroke of genius, by the way – people can’t stop petting them.”

Mick grins. Plan successful.

“Guess you’ll have to put up with staying with me,” he tells Len, turning to face his partner.

Len smiles, a little crooked smile, the truest smile he has for all of its seeming duplicity. “Yeah,” he says. “Guess I will.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Slow down, slow down,” Len says into the communication device Cisco had invented for more regular communication. “What’s this about an evil speedster?”

Mick’s not going to look up from where he’s planning next season’s cheese rotations with Mab. 

He will _not_. 

“And _why_ was Stein pretending to be a Nazi musician again?”

Nope. No way. Not getting involved.

“A compass. A compass that points the direction to what?”

Mick’s retired. He has a good life. A quiet life. And that’s how he likes it.

“The spear of _what now_? The Spear of _Destiny_? I think I saw an Indiana Jones movie with that.”

Willpower, Mick. _Willpower_.

“And at what point in this story does Ray blow up his suit?”

Okay, fuck it.

Mick throws down his pencil.

Mab doesn’t even look up. She’s made of steel.

“Lenny,” he roars.

“Hold on,” Len says into the speaker. “Yeah, Mick?”

“Have they asked Barry about the speedster yet? Or Cisco? He might be able to vibe them something.”

“Good point. I’ll ask.”

A few seconds go by.

“They say they knew we would be helpful and they promise to tell us if their fuck-ups turn us all into goats,” Len reports.

Mick shakes his head and goes back to Mab.

Len wanders over after a few minutes. “Sounds like they’re doing well,” he says cheerfully. He doesn’t seem inclined to suggest that they should join the hunt for whatever thing the Legends are looking for now, which – thank god. Looks like Barry’s idea about setting Len up as Central City’s kingpin with a meta army in an attempt to ferret out real threats (and go on the occasional heist) has been sufficient to keep him busy.

Though Mick’s starting to worry about those letters they’ve been getting in the mail the last few weeks, asking Len to join some sort of ‘Legion of Doom’…

“The world hasn’t ended yet,” he finally says. “Now c’mon, help us name the new cheese.”

“How’d it get made?”

“All you need to know is that it’ll have a slight asparagus flavor,” Mab says. “Very clean, very bright.”

Len blinks and then a great big dumb grin comes over his face slowly, like it’s involuntary.

“What?” Mick says suspiciously. 

“Lady and criminal,” Len says. “I give you: the Spear of Destiny.”

“ _No_ ,” Mick says.

“Actually…” Mab says.

(The Legends pick up twelve pounds of the Spear when they come visiting during the alien invasion, laughing the whole time.)


End file.
